


Quaffles and Broomsticks

by HoosYourDaddy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Time, Oral Sex, Quidditch, Romance, Secret Relationship, Shower Sex, Voyeurism, smut with plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:14:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26013964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoosYourDaddy/pseuds/HoosYourDaddy
Summary: With everything going wrong for him in fifth year, Harry finds solace in a very unexpected place: the quidditch locker room.  Harry/Angelina.  Smutty Romance with Plot.  Warning: not intended for younger audiences.
Relationships: Angelina Johnson/Harry Potter
Comments: 33
Kudos: 191





	1. Chapter 1

Quaffles and Broomsticks, Chapter 1

Disclaimer: None of this is mine, etc. All hail JK Rowling.

Warning: This fic contains adult situations and smut. It is not intended for younger audiences.

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Hufflepuff. Fucking _Hufflepuff!_

She strode out of the locker room angrily, broom in hand. She could fly to the pitch in mere seconds, but chose to walk instead. It was easier for her to seethe on the ground, and by Merlin, she wanted to seethe.

Hufflepuff!

In September she would have called it inconceivable. Now it was reality.

This was supposed to be her year of triumph, the year that the stars aligned and everything finally—finally!—worked itself out in her favor. But it had been a disaster from beginning to end. At this rate she would be lucky if even the Cannons took her seriously as a prospect.

Last year that cursed tournament had ruined her chance to be noticed by the pro scouts. This year that vile Ministry bitch had ruined her team. With her best players banned, there was no chance of impressing anyone with Gryffindor’s play. She felt as if she were playing with both hands tied behind her back.

And now? Hufflepuff!

It was a smack in the face. An insult added to grievous injury. How could her team lose to Hufflepuff? They were composed of almost entirely new players. It would be nearly impossible to win the Quidditch Cup now, and this was her last chance.

She leapt on her Cleansweep 260 and accelerated sharply into the air. The wind in her face almost took her breath away. It was awful weather for flying, frigid and moist, but it matched her mood perfectly. She wanted to rage at something, and the indifference of nature made an excellent target.

She soared through the sky, waiting on the hoops to come into view. Banking hard left, she rolled through the center hoop in a corkscrew, pretending to feel the narrow miss of a bludger. She turned sharply and extended an arm, accepting the pass of the quaffle, before making an imaginary assault on goal.

Oliver Wood hovered in front of her, a smirk on his face, taunting her inability to score on him. She flew directly at him, feinted left, then veered hard to the right. Wood was confused for a split-second, and the quaffle soared past him for a goal. She could almost hear the roar of approval from the crowd.

She cheered in return, venting all of her frustrations in a single victory cry.

She zoomed back into position, preparing to catch the quaffle from Katie, when she realized she wasn’t alone. There was another flyer. He sat high above her, in the center of the pitch, hovering but not moving. She squinted into the distance, but couldn’t discern who it was. No one but her should be foolish enough to fly in this weather.

She flew slowly and cautiously upward, lest her fellow rider prove to be a Slytherin. She was nearly upon him when she recognized the wild black hair and green eyes.

“Harry?” she asked, her breath misting in the air.

“Hey, Angelina.”

She examined him curiously and then with some concern. He was hovering on one of the old school brooms, his own likely locked in that bitch’s office. Or perhaps even turned into kindling by now. His lips were nearly blue from the cold.

“What are you doing up here?”

“Just clearing my head,” he said. “What about you?”

“The same, I guess. Running some maneuvers since I’ve got a couple spare hours.”

“Can’t coax anyone else to practice?”

“Nah, too bloody cold. Won’t have another official one till it warms up a little.”

He nodded but didn’t reply.

She frowned as she took in his appearance. He was wearing only his school robe, and hadn’t bothered with gloves or, from the looks it, warming charms. That was not a wise idea for February in Scotland. She stamped down her urge to chide him.

Her anger with him and the twins was no longer a fierce, burning thing. It had been explosive in November, when Umbridge banned them from the team. She knew even then that it wasn’t completely their fault, but even so she couldn’t fully forgive them for rising to the Slytherins’ bait. Could they not swallow their pride for a single moment? Did they not realize what was at stake for her? It had felt like a personal insult.

She hadn’t spoken to any of them for weeks afterwards. Even now, after joining Harry’s defense club, some tension remained between them.

“You alright there, Harry? You’re turning blue.”

“Yeah. Feels good, actually. The castle makes me feel like I’m suffocating.”

He looked exhausted, she had to admit. There were dark circles beneath his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept soundly in months. It was possible he hadn’t. Her own dreams were plagued with anxiety—quidditch failures, NEWTs, and a vague sense of doom about her future.

All at once she felt guilty about her previous coldness toward him. From his perspective, she was probably the one behaving selfishly, of failing to see the big picture.

“Want me to cast a warming charm or two?”

“If you want, but I’m fine.”

“Liar. You’d say you were fine if you had a broken bone sticking out of you.”

He shrugged and for the first time smiled at her. “I’m just tired.”

She wasn’t in the mood to mother him. She could use a little mothering herself. But a Captain’s job was never done, it seemed, even after her players got kicked off the team.

“Well, if you’re trying to find some peace up here, you’re going about it all wrong.”

“What?”

“Brooms are meant for flying, Harry, not for sitting on your arse while you slowly freeze to death.”

He shrugged again and her irritation with him returned. “Let’s go. Twenty laps around the pitch. The loser coughs up a galleon.”

“I’m on a school broom,” he said incredulously.

“Guess you’re going to lose then.”

She took off at full speed, racing to the edge of the pitch. He stared after her, then shook his head and followed, his broom slowly accelerating.

They flew for much longer than twenty laps. Neither bothered to count, and they passed their imaginary finish line without realizing it. It wasn’t truly a race. She was far faster. But Harry cut corners and chased her, teasing every ounce of speed from his shoddy broom. He pulled even every minute or so, just long enough for her to laugh at him and pull away. After a dozen laps he was laughing too.

Finally she stopped and hovered next to the stands, using their bulk to block some of the wind. He slowed his chase and stopped alongside her. Both were breathing hard, their faces and bodies covered in cold sweat, but they were exhilarated.

“You owe me a galleon,” she said.

He laughed. “Like hell I do.”

“You should owe me a hundred for having to train Sloper and Kirke.”

“Go yell at the twins for that one. Your new seeker’s doing fine.”

“I might just do that. Feeling any better?”

He smiled, aware of what she was doing. “Yes. Thank you, Captain Johnson.”

“Just looking out for my seeker.”

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He left the castle and walked toward the quidditch locker rooms, thankful, for once, for the terrible weather. Not a soul was outside, so there was no one to tattle on him for flying. Umbridge hadn’t yet banned him from flying altogether, and he didn’t want to tempt fate.

Yesterday’s flight with Angelina had been invigorating, a welcome respite, but today he decided to use warming charms and thicker clothes. There was no need to court sickness on top of all the other disasters. He again chose the least defective of the team’s old brooms and soared into the air.

He flew slowly to the pitch, trying to ignore the little wobble in the broom every time he veered left. There was little he could do there but fly in circles, but yesterday had proved it was better for his mood than gritting his teeth in silence.

He saw another flyer as he approached, and knew immediately that it was her. Only Angelina was crazy enough to run drills by herself in February. He hovered high in the air and watched her.

She took the lead in the Hawkshead formation, zig-zagging and barrel-rolling as she prepared to take a shot on goal. He could almost see the bludgers zooming past her and the keeper panicking as she approached. She even pretended to toss the absent quaffle. She pumped her first immediately after, no doubt imagining a successful shot.

He snorted and descended toward her. She stopped her next run and waited on him.

“Back again, Harry?”

“Can’t get enough of the weather.”

“And here I thought it was my personality.”

“You wish. What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Drills, obviously, but why? Next game isn’t until May.”

Her glare became as icy as the weather. “Some of us have more riding on quidditch than others.”

He blinked, not quite certain how he had insulted her. “So, er, anything I can do to help?”

“Can you play keeper?”

“Never tried before,” he said with a shrug.

“That means you probably suck.”

“I had never flown before as a firstie and you crazy people stuck me on a broom and told me to catch a little golden ball. Seems to have worked out.”

She rolled her eyes. “Let’s go get a quaffle. Maybe you won’t be completely useless.”

It turned out he was only mostly useless. Seeker skills didn’t translate to keeper skills, and so Harry’s main activity that afternoon consisted of flying to the ground to retrieve the shots he missed. Her coaching did allow him to improve, though, and by the end he managed to block an occasional shot. At the very least she got some practice humiliating him.

Dusk was falling by the time they finished. Both were freezing, even with warming charms, but they were in far better moods than when they started. They flew to the locker room so she could clean up and he could stow the old broom.

The locker room was blazing with welcome heat compared to the outdoors.

“Sweet Merlin, that feels good,” she groaned, pulling off her cold, wet jersey. She tossed it at her locker and shivered.

Harry’s teeth were chattering despite the warming charms, and he rubbed his hands together in relief. He missed this room. The place smelled faintly of old leather and sweat. But there was an energy to it that he hadn’t felt anywhere else. It was as if the accumulated triumphs and failures of centuries of players somehow haunted the room.

He stowed the old broom in the cupboard and considered whether he should shower there. He was already cold and wet, and didn’t fancy a long walk to the castle. He could always cast drying charms on himself, but it wasn’t quite the same as a long, hot shower.

“You might as well just shower here, Harry. I’m not going to fetch Umbridge to drag you out.”

He cringed. “Thanks for that image.”

“You’re welcome. And thank you for today. I appreciate it.”

“Any time, Angelina. Least I could do, considering what happened.”

“Well, you’re even worse than Weasley, but at least I had someone to fetch the quaffle.”

“Fuck off.”

She chuckled and pulled off her sodden t-shirt, now standing in only a thin pair of shorts and a sports bra.

Harry watched her out of the corner of his eye, trying to be subtle. The bra was bright green, standing out starkly against her dark skin, and it hugged her tightly. He could see the hint of perspiration in some very prominent areas, and her skin seemed to shine from their recent exertions.

The locker room dynamic had always been odd to him. There was an open changing room where players stowed their uniforms and gear, and then there were separate showers for the boys and the girls. Each shower had a little anteroom where they could dress and undress privately. Even so, it wasn’t uncommon to see people strolling around in their underwear.

Angelina had always been one of the least modest. He had seen her in her sports bra and knickers dozens of times, but had never openly ogled her. There were always other people around, and he didn’t want to embarrass her. Nor did he want to feel like a sleaze.

But it was impossible not to notice that she was every inch an athlete. There was no excess anything on her body. It was as if she had been carved from marble by the gods of quidditch.

He felt her head turn in his direction and quickly glanced away. Making up his mind, he removed his own soaking robes and dropped them on the ground. Right now he needed to feel hot water. He peeled off his shirt, shivering as the air caressed his skin. He had no idea whether she was looking his way, but he subtly flexed his chest anyway. It was difficult not to feel self-conscious in the presence of someone with such an impressive body.

She chuckled and he looked up, but she was pulling a towel from within her locker and paying him no attention.

“So what’s on the agenda for the next DA meeting, Professor Potter?”

“I don’t know. The protego maximus shield, maybe, but I’ll have to talk to Hermione. She makes the lesson plans. I just teach.”

“Well, you’re doing a good job of it. When do we learn the patronus charm?”

She turned and faced him, leaning casually on the door that led to her showers. Her arms were crossed under her bra, almost daring him to look at her breasts and bare stomach. He reluctantly looked away.

“Er, not sure. Later in the term.”

“Don’t wait too long. I can’t wait to see what my animal is. You never know when dementors might invade the pitch again.”

He just nodded as she entered the girls’ showers.

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There was a loud pop at one end of the common room, followed by the sound of squawking and the laughter of the twins. She growled and returned to her reading, deciding to let one of the other prefects handle it.

She had to clamp down on her irritation every time the twins tried to distract her from studying. ‘They’re just NEWTS, Angie! Far less important than SALAMANDERS!’ None of them understood. They never had.

The twins were prodigies in their own way. They didn’t need OWLs or NEWTs to succeed in the magical world. Even if they hadn’t been so gifted, they could get Ministry jobs simply by virtue of their birth. Being from a well-known pureblood family was all it took, even if that family was poor. Alicia’s family was less prominent, but still she had enough connections not to worry.

They were mostly oblivious to her situation, she knew. It wasn’t entirely their fault. She couldn’t find it in herself to explain it to them. It wounded her pride. To speak the truth would embarrass them and invite their pity, and she was too proud for that. She intended to succeed on her own merits or not at all.

And what merits they were. A black muggleborn witch. Black mudblood bitch, according to the people with the real power. Three strikes and she was out, before she’d even been aware there was a game. No job at the Ministry awaited her unless she was gifted beyond belief, and even then it would be serving tea to someone like Umbridge. Top 10% of your class simply wasn’t good enough, not when there were so many Flints and Vaiseys at the bottom who needed sinecures.

No apprenticeship with a Master awaited either, unless she proved herself far more gifted than other applicants. No one knew who she was. No one knew her family. ‘Almost good enough to be the Hogwarts Tri-Wizard Champion’ meant nothing on a resume. Who would want to apprentice a teenaged black girl who would probably just slink back to the muggles where she belonged anyway? The Aurors might take her, of course. She was a skilled-enough witch. But she didn’t want to fight criminals and terrorists.

If she wanted to stay in this world, her only real option was quidditch.

She was good at it and she loved it. Nothing else mattered when she was in the air. She was free, bound only by objective rules that she had already mastered. They didn’t care about her ‘base’ origins in the pro leagues. Some fans might, but the teams only cared about winning.

Loud braying laughter echoed across the common room, and she looked up to see Hermione Granger pointing her finger in Fred’s face. Good. At least someone else around here could deliver a proper dressing down.

She sighed and dipped her quill in the inkwell. It wouldn’t be a total disaster if her dream failed. She had friends. The twins would probably hire her, assuming their business plans succeeded. Or she might be able to marry into a family that had connections, provided she could snag a pureblood.

But the thought of doing it that way filled her throat with bile. She wanted no pity, no charity, and no helping hand, even if it came from the Weasleys. She wanted everyone she saw to acknowledge that she belonged, that she held the same worth they did—at least, that’s what she wanted when she didn’t want to knock their bloody teeth out.

And so she mostly kept her frustration to herself, hiding it even from her closest friends, and channeled it into quidditch.

The last two years, though, had made her despair. One disaster followed swiftly on the heels of another. No quidditch at all last year, during perhaps the most important year for recruiting. A decimated team this year, which would demonstrate far and wide her inability to lead. Now a Ministry bitch was sabotaging her Defense NEWTs. And to top it all off, the looming threat of a Dark Lord that she didn’t even want to think about.

She mostly didn’t think about it. It was just too much—a nightmare scenario where even her meager ambitions meant nothing. How could they, in the face of a potential war against people who wanted not just to shove her aside, but to annihilate her?

So she had chosen the easier path, and let people like Dumbledore worry about it. People like Harry Potter.

She rubbed her forehead and dropped her quill onto the parchment. Harry Fucking Potter. She had treated him poorly this year. Not as poorly as others, but still…she had doubted his story at first, not wanting to believe something so awful could be true. But as the evidence piled up, anyone with sense knew something very big and very bad was on the horizon.

Now he was receiving abuse from every corner. He was defiant, but the stress of it showed every day on his face, and she regretted her tiny addition to it. Even with his burdens, he still tried to help out his classmates with a secret Defense class—still tried to help her, even if it was just with quidditch drills. Something deep within her whispered that her worries over a quidditch career would soon be laughable, and despair threatened to overwhelm her again.

The sounds of clucking and laughter filled the common room again.

“Fuck,” she muttered. She closed her books and stuffed them into her bag. She needed to fly again or she was going to scream in someone’s face.

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A/N: Here you go. This will be a Harry/Angelina fic and a bit of an experiment for me. It started as a smutty oneshot, but eventually turned into something more serious. It will be nine chapters and about 30k words, all of which is already written in rough draft form.

There will be plenty of characterization to go along with the smut, as well as a dash of angst and a healthy serving of romance, though not the fluffy kind. I hope you enjoy it.


	2. Chapter 2

Quaffles and Broomsticks, Chapter 2

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Relief. That’s what he felt. Well, mostly. There was some embarrassment too. And a touch of shame. He did just get dumped, after all. But the dominant feeling was relief, and it confused him.

Cho had cornered him after Transfiguration to apologize for how their Valentine’s date turned out. Hermione had already explained to him what he had done wrong, though he privately blamed her for part of the mess. What was Cho supposed to think when he dragged her to meet another girl on their date?

But it had gone wrong long before the meeting with Hermione. Even he knew that. After fifteen minutes of awkward conversation, he realized that they only had two things in common: quidditch, and her dead ex-boyfriend. Not exactly the foundation for a healthy relationship, especially when she continually asked him about Cedric’s last moments. His answer wasn’t going to change to something that comforted her, and that only increased his guilt.

He had persevered anyway. She was his first crush, and she was gorgeous. He hated to see her in pain. But there was nothing he could say or do to help. They had both tried to find something innocuous to discuss, yet Cedric’s ghost loomed over them still.

It was a mercy that she found the courage to break it off. She could have easily strung him along for months. He felt a pang of regret at the end of his first pseudo-relationship, but mostly he was relieved it was done. Wasn’t he supposed to feel as if he had lost something?

There were too many other things to worry about, he supposed. Voldemort, Umbridge, the DA, occlumency lessons, the strange dreams, not to mention half the school still thinking him a liar. Adding romance to that cauldron threatened to make the whole thing explode.

Hermione could sense his mood. She looked ready to interrogate him again, so he grabbed his cloak and escaped the dorms before anyone could talk to him about his bloody feelings. He just wanted to fly.

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She barreled toward the ground, performing the chaser’s version of a Wronski Feint, then pulled up sharply. She tossed the quaffle to her waiting teammate and shot back into the sky, following her from below and waiting for the pass that would force their keeper to make a choice. The quaffle shot toward her position and she grabbed it. She could stare directly into the keeper’s uncertain eyes from this distance. She jerked her broom to the right, forcing him to defend that goal, then tossed the quaffle straight through the center hoop, not even looking at it.

If only she could get a chance to do this at the pro level, they would all see what she was capable of.

But it might not happen. Another day had passed without mail. No teams had invited her to a summer tryout yet, and it was nearly March. Oliver Wood had received five such invitations by this point in his seventh year. If she didn’t receive any in the next month, she likely wouldn’t receive any at all. It left a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach, and made her want to punch something in frustration.

Her bludgeoning curse at the last DA meeting had knocked Fred right on his arse, and it had felt fantastic. If only she could hex people during quidditch.

She was contemplating which move to practice next when he showed up. He was crossing her path more often than usual lately. She flew up next to him and smiled.

“That’s three times this week, Harry. You’re not getting sweet on me, are you? Because I don’t want to break your heart.”

“Don’t get your hopes up. I’m told I make a terrible boyfriend.”

“Well, damn. There go my plans for a torrid affair. What happened? Put your foot in it with Chang?”

“We’re, er, not really together anymore. I’m not sure if we ever were.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Managed to scare her away already?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Good, because I don’t want to hear about it.”

He glared at her, but there was no heat in it. “What are you doing today? Winning imaginary World Cups again?”

“I’ll take what I can get right now. The real one is looking like a pipe dream. I might have to send an owl to the Cannons myself.”

“So you want to play professionally?”

She stared at him for a long moment, wondering how he could be so oblivious. “What gave it away? Being outside at the arse end of winter?”

“Hey now. I thought you might just be letting off some steam. We all need it.”

“Can’t argue with that, I guess. You here to let me embarrass you again?”

“I figured you need the ego boost.”

“I do. Get in the goal.”

Harry spent the next hour facing an aggressive onslaught of quaffles. She attacked him from every angle, never even looking at any of the hoops. She always stared into his eyes as she approached, a mad grin on her face. It made him sympathetic to the poor bastards who had to defend against her. He felt as if they were playing some sort of violent poker. 

He managed to stop some of her shots, but most got through. He had to admit to himself that he wasn’t much of a keeper. But it was difficult to focus when he was on a terrible broom and had other things on his mind. Training with her wasn’t quite the same as a relaxing flight.

She finally called it when he blocked a quaffle with his face, nearly knocking him off his broom.

“Oy, you’ve got hands, Harry! Use them!”

She flew up beside him and looked him over.

“What’s got into you? You looked like you were daydreaming on that last shot,” she said.

He rubbed the welt on his cheek and winced. “Just a bit distracted today, I guess.”

“Well, don’t come up here unless you’re ready to play. I might take your bloody head off. Make up with Chang or pull one of your other girls into a broom closet if you need it.”

“What girls?”

She laughed. “Take your pick. Hermione. Ginny, if you’re willing to brave the Weasleys. Parvati is always molesting you with her eyes. You could have a go with that crazy Ravenclaw in the DA—what’s her name?”

“Luna,” he said curtly.

She held up her hands. “Come on—she’s a nice girl, but she’s weird. Don’t pretend she isn’t.”

“Maybe she is. I’m still not going to ‘have a go’ with her or anyone else.”

“Suit yourself. But you better not have your head up your arse next time. I don’t want them to toss me in Azkaban for killing you.”

“They might give you a medal.”

“Chin up, Harry. Forget about Chang. You don’t want to be with a quidditch girl anyway. We’re all crazy.”

“I won’t argue with that.”

He turned grumpily and flew toward the locker rooms. She followed, still laughing at him.

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Angelina pulled off her robes and dropped them on the floor. It wasn’t even raining outside and they were still wet. There was so much cold moisture in the air that it might as well have been pouring. Even her underclothes were damp and clinging to her body.

She peeled off her t-shirt and added it to the pile. The House Elves would deal with the mess, thank Merlin. Her shorts came off next, leaving her in knickers and bra.

Harry had been so quiet since they entered that she had almost forgotten he was there, still sitting in his wet robes and staring at his locker. But she could feel his gaze on her now.

She could always feel it. Boys were so lacking in subtlety. It was like they forgot she had peripheral vision, and hers was better than most. She glanced down at her chest. Her bra was clinging to her, her nipples poking visibly against the fabric. Harry was getting quite a show.

She had never minded the casual glance in the locker room. If she were honest, she liked it. A little harmless admiration now and then was good for the self-esteem, as long as no one harassed her. She knew she had quite a body. She was proud of it, even if it wasn’t as soft as those of other girls. 

She had certainly cast quite a few appreciative glances of her own over the years, especially at Oliver. That boy was made out of muscle. The twins weren’t much to look at without their shirts, but they were her friends, and they were close enough that it didn’t feel awkward to look at them. Especially when they posed goofily, almost demanding attention.

Harry was a different story. He had been a firstie when he joined the team. A little moppet. Four foot nothing and made entirely of hair and glasses. By unspoken rule nobody teased him in the locker room, lest he feel out of place among his older teammates. But she had watched him grow up and fill out. He was no longer a little boy. He was a determined fifth-year with a smart mouth, and just enough remaining innocence to be amusing.

She had caught him staring several times at the start of the year, and each time pretended not to notice. Every time she glanced in his direction he would hurriedly look away. He had the subtlety of a troll, but it was sweet.

On a whim, she picked up her wet t-shirt and tossed it at him. It flew across the room, and his hand shot out and caught it on instinct. He stared at it in surprise, as if it were something from another planet.

She laughed. “Nice catch. Guess your skills aren’t too rusty.”

He snorted and tossed it back to her, and she dropped it on the floor. She grabbed her towel from her locker, and could sense him staring at her again. Merlin, what an easy target. This was getting silly.

She faced him fully and crossed her arms under her chest, aware of the show she was giving him. Or would be, if he hadn’t looked away again. She could feel how hard her nipples were, and her knickers were clinging to her tightly.

“We’ve got the DA tomorrow night, but did you want to run some more drills on Friday afternoon?” she asked casually.

“Er, yeah, I’ll be free after herbology if you want.”

“I would appreciate it. You’re the only one willing to fly in the cold.”

“Sure thing,” he said, his eyes remaining on his locker.

She almost laughed. With everything else going so wrong, her seeker’s awkwardness with girls was a welcome diversion. “So…how ‘bout those Cannons?”

He snorted softly. “You know, if you keep inviting me to look, I’m going to look.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

When she didn’t reply, he stood and faced her. She looked ready to burst out laughing. 

He narrowed his eyes at her expression and let his eyes travel slowly south, for the first time taking in every inch of her. Her skin looked soft, but it concealed hard muscle everywhere. Her thighs were powerful, courtesy of spending countless hours on a broom. Her abs were pulled so taut they almost rippled every time she breathed.

He took a breath and dared to look at her chest. Dark nipples poked hard against her bra. It was so damp and snug that it was almost translucent, revealing the contours of her breasts clearly. 

He glanced up at her eyes and this time she did laugh. “Oh, Merlin, your face.”

He raised an eyebrow, not quite certain how to take her laughter. “You did dare me to look.”

“And it’s about damn time you did. I thought you were going to hurt your neck. I don’t mind if you take a peek sometimes, Harry. We’re friends, and I’ve seen that new six pack you’re sporting. Just don’t be a sleaze about it, okay?”

He nodded as the tension of the moment released. “Okay.”

She threw her towel over her shoulder, then headed toward the girls’ showers. She stopped just before she entered and looked over her shoulder, catching him staring at her ass.

“Perv,” she said, and her laughter echoed off the walls of the shower.

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The next DA meeting was interesting.

Angelina showed up with the twins and Alicia Spinnett, and gave no more than her usual acknowledgment to Harry. He had half-expected her to mock him in front of the whole room.

She might have, if she had known of his dreams the night before. He had relived the entire locker room moment, except this time the green bra and knickers—both firmly etched in his memory—had disappeared. She had stood in front of him totally nude and invited him to look.

Harry shook his head, trying to focus on his task as the others filtered in. He decided that he liked leading the DA. He had resented it at first. But it was fulfilling to organize the chaos and see people improve right before his eyes. He liked the expectant looks they gave him before he demonstrated a spell that even the seventh years hadn’t fully mastered. It was one of the few bright spots in his life right now.

He had talked Hermione out of teaching the protego maxima charm. While it would be useful to know how to form an impenetrable shield, it required three casters and three complex spells, all of which were NEWT level.

Instead they were learning _levicorpus_ , a spell that suspended the victim in the air by the ankle. It took only one demonstration to realize that they needed to teach the counter spell first. Otherwise the victim either stayed suspended indefinitely or crashed to the ground on their head.

Needless to say, the spell was a huge hit with the Weasley twins. It was less of a hit with the girls who were wearing skirts under their robes. Sticking charms soon became fashionable.

Harry roamed the room, watching people cast the spell at their friends. Everyone seemed to like this one, if the laughter was any indication. He watched Angelina out of the corner of his eye. She seemed to take great delight in leaving Katie Bell dangling until her face was bright red.

It warmed his heart to see it. He thought he understood now why she was practicing so intensely in the freezing cold, and why she had been so irate with him and the twins. This season was her last chance to showcase her skills, and their lack of self-control had ruined it. He felt a bit thick for not realizing it earlier, but he hadn’t yet begun thinking of his post-Hogwarts life. That seemed an eternity away. Hers started in four months.

He watched as Angelina performed _liberacorpus_ on Katie and lowered her gently to the ground. Angelina turned her head and caught him staring at her. She smiled but rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to their teammate. It left him both relieved and strangely disappointed.

She had just been teasing him yesterday, he concluded. Gently mocking him to take his mind off things, as she had done when she raced him around the pitch. Or perhaps just trying to make things more comfortable between them, if she had been aware of his stolen glances. How could it be otherwise?

And yet he couldn’t get the vision of her body out of his mind. If her intention had been to help him relax in the locker room, she had certainly failed. He didn’t think he could look at her body as casually as she put it on display. It was just too majestic for that.

At the very least she had succeeded in taking his mind off Cho.

He tried to put her out of his mind and focus his attention on the others. He had more important things to worry about than his quidditch captain’s body.

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A/N: New chapters should be out every 10 days or so. Any and all feedback is welcome.


	3. Chapter 3

Quaffles and Broomsticks, Chapter 3

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He was right. The next time they practiced together, she made no mention of what had transpired in the locker room. He felt only a moment of awkwardness before she tossed a quaffle at him and told him to get his ass in the hoops. Then they were just two teammates enduring the freezing weather together.

She attacked him ruthlessly for almost two hours. When he showed improvement and began blocking more shots, she only became more aggressive. Once again, he spent most of his time retrieving the quaffle from the ground.

Afterwards in the locker room, they spoke casually. There were no subtle flirtations that he could detect. He let his gaze wander over her body a little more boldly, which earned him a smirk, but she didn’t taunt him for looking. He was careful not to ogle her. That could wait until sleep claimed him, when the locker room became an altogether different place.

They made plans to practice again in three days’ time and went their separate ways.

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Another two days gone. Still no letters. She was growing to loathe the sight of owls. Every morning they mocked her, diving into the Great Hall by the dozen. Each one held hope in its talons, and each left her disappointed. Were the recruiters even aware of her existence? She had shaken hands with a few, but that was two years ago, and they had only been present to court Oliver.

Alicia and Katie were shooting her worried looks. Her sense of humor had gone on vacation of late. She knew she was being snappish with everyone, but couldn’t bring herself to care. If the twins turned her into a canary one more damned time, it would be the last prank they ever played. Even they got the message after taking a pair of vicious stinging curses to the groin.

She camped out in the library, preferring silence to the camaraderie of the common room. Studying for her NEWTs felt pointless, but excelling at them was a matter of pride. She felt deep in her bones that they would be irrelevant to her future, no matter what the Professors said.

Something in her preparations felt final. It wasn’t the fact that she would soon be leaving Hogwarts. It was that she was studying to master skills she would probably never use again. Why was she required to make a teacup dance? Or to brew a potion that removed ear hair? Or to know what a niffler eats? All seven years of her education suddenly felt arbitrary—a prelude to participating in a culture that would never fully be hers. Or for a career she would never have.

She stared out the window of the library and chewed on her quill. Sometimes she didn’t even like magic. She liked the idea of it. The wonder of it. But it didn’t make her life any easier—not unless she never wanted to use a dishwasher again, and even that was a dubious exchange.

It only felt real to her when she was in the air. The broom between her legs was the real proof that she was magical. That there was something special about her, even among people who could turn shotguns into salmon.

She set aside the dry Herbology textbook and reached for Defense. That test, mercifully, would be easy, despite the worst efforts of the Professors. She had already revised for the essay portion, and the practical portion would be a cinch under the instruction of ‘Professor Potter.’ If she could master the patronus charm in time, she was almost guaranteed an O.

The DA had made her proficient in dozens of offensive and defensive spells. At first she had only joined to prepare for NEWTs, and because all her friends were joining. By January it had become something more. It thrilled her to be part of a group rebelling against the bitch who represented everything awful about the magical world.

But lately she dreaded the sessions. No matter how much useful magic she learned, they were a reminder of what awaited her outside the castle walls. Men in bone-white masks who wanted to slaughter her. Men who cared not even slightly whether her NEWTs were EEs or Os, or how well she could lead an attack in the Hawkshead formation. It was growing impossible to pretend they were someone else’s problem.

She wasn’t certain how Harry dealt with it. She wasn’t a particular target for Death Eaters. Not yet. She could still shunt aside some of her fears. But he had been hunted since birth. And still he fought back every step of the way, even as the odds against him grew increasingly grim. The hysterical attacks on him in the Prophet only proved the danger was real.

It was easy to forget he was famous when they were on the pitch. She could boss him around with impunity. He never demanded special treatment. And now he was helping her, despite her earlier wrath. He had his own reasons to join her in the freezing weather, she knew. Reasons that had little to do with her or even quidditch.

Even so, it was starting to feel like he was her only teammate. He kept returning, willing to suffer the quaffles she threw at him, and willing to retrieve them. Too bad he was such an awful keeper.

She smiled to herself. The most famous teenager in their world was serving as her errand boy on the pitch. And he asked nothing of her in return.

Well, except perhaps a little peek at her bared flesh.

It was fun to tease him. To keep him off balance. How could his comfort zone include dementors and dragons but not his friend in a sports bra? It was almost endearing. No, it _was_ endearing. More so than the flippant silliness of the twins. It was also more flattering than she liked to admit, and she could do with a little flattery lately.

It was harmless to let him look, she decided. She would be gone soon. Bound for quidditch or obscurity or worse. And he would still be The-Boy-Who-Lived, bound for another kind of life altogether. One she would read about in books, assuming she survived what was coming.

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His head was going to split apart. Any second now. It would crack like a walnut and his brains would spill across his pillow and stain it red. Ron would wake in the morning to discover his best friend’s head had simply exploded during the night.

Hopefully they would blame it on Snape. It was his fault anyway.

Tonight’s occlumency session had been the worst in a series of increasingly bad ones. Snape had yanked his worst memories of the Dursleys directly from the darkest recesses of his mind. He had even forgotten some of the moments. Frying pans and hot irons and hard smacks on soft flesh. Entire days without food. Snape had sneered, taunting him for his inability to resist the attack. By the end he could barely stand up, and his headache was blinding.

Even now, hours later, it felt as if his mind had been shredded.

When sleep finally came for him, it offered little respite. The dream of the empty corridor and its inviting door was more powerful than ever. He could see every detail of the cold, grey walls now. The door itself was mere feet away. He could make out a glossy M on its surface. What did that mean?

He tossed and turned, his mind refusing to rest. The door haunted him. He absolutely had to know what lay beyond it, if only so he could sleep well again.

The morning had mostly cured his headache, but still he felt rung out. He missed breakfast, trying to catch an extra hour of badly needed rest. He could skip History of Magic and no one would care. Transfiguration and Defense were inescapable, and he knew that by this afternoon he would again feel oppressed by the very air of the castle.

His promised session with Angelina was the only relief in sight. He held on hard to the thought, as if it were fuel for a patronus. Getting smacked around by her wasn’t exactly pleasant, and it was still bitterly cold outside. But there was something cleansing about the cold. And he would be on a broom, able to forget himself for at least a little while.

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This time he was there before her, sitting in the locker room with his head in his hands. The shoddy school broom leaned on the bench beside him. He almost appeared to be asleep, and she wondered just how long he had been waiting on her to show up.

She opened her locker to don her quidditch gear and he looked up. His face was drawn and pale, his eyes bloodshot.

“You look like shit, Harry.”

“Thanks.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Pretty much everything,” he said, slowly rising to pull on his own quidditch robes.

Coming from him, that was a worrying response. He always made at least an attempt to conceal his misery.

“You don’t have to come out here and practice with me, you know. I know you’re under a lot of stress. If—”

“No. This is the only part of my day I can stand. I’d go crazy without it.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I am. Let’s go before it starts raining again.”

She led him to the pitch, where they spent thirty minutes just doing laps. Harry’s head clearly wasn’t where it needed to be to block goals. They held an impromptu chase for ten laps, then she traded brooms with him. He treated hers with almost comic reverence, glad to be on a quality broom again.

She laughed at his glee, even when he proceeded to stomp her. She had a hard time keeping up with him even cutting corners. He was born to fly as much as she was, and clearly needed the release.

“Feeling better now, Professor?”

“Very much so, Captain. Thank you for letting me ride a real broom.”

“Anytime. Now get in the goal so I can give you a beating.”

He retreated to the hoops on his school broom. She hadn’t been joking about the beating. Harry was competent enough now that she could unleash her full range of skills on him. He had no counter for most of them, but at the very least he forced her to take his presence into account.

The rain began midway through their session. They were soon soaked, even with impervius and drying charms. But neither wanted to quit. Though they were cold and shivering, it was still better than sitting in the castle and brooding.

By the time she ended it, his hair was plastered to his forehead and his robes sodden, but there was a smile on his face that hadn’t been present before.

“You were amazing out there today,” he said, almost having to shout through the heavy rain.

“Thanks. You managed to stop a few decent ones. You still suck though.”

He laughed. “Your confidence in me is inspiring.”

“That’s why McGonagall pays me all those galleons. Let’s get the fuck out of this weather.”

Neither had ever been more relieved to feel the warmth of a building. March had arrived, but it was proving to be exceptionally cold and wet. If it continued, Angelina was worried that the team wouldn’t practice again for a month.

Both removed their soaked robes and dropped them on the floor. It would take two dozen drying charms to make them wearable, but each had brought other things.

“You can borrow my broom whenever you feel the need, you know,” she said. “You don’t have to fly around on that piece of shit.”

“Thanks, but if Umbridge caught me on it, she’d probably confiscate it. I won’t do that to you.”

“Just trying to make sure you don’t drive yourself barmy. Might be too late for that though.”

“Says the girl practicing in the sleet.”

She laughed, and a moment later a soaking wet t-shirt smacked him in the face. He saw it coming, but his arms were too tired to raise a defense.

He retaliated by throwing his own wet shirt at her. She rung it out and threw it back.

“I don’t wear Chudley shirts, Harry. Thanks for the offer though.”

“Blame Ron. He won’t let me support anyone else.”

“It’s his arse that should be out here practicing. Not you.”

“He likes food and warmth too much to be outside right now.”

“Probably has more sense than we do.”

He saw her toss something else out of the corner of his eye and nearly caught another garment in the face. But he managed to snag this one. He held it in his hand for a moment before realizing he was holding her wet shorts. He looked up to see her reaching inside her locker for a towel, wearing only bra and panties. Both adhered to her body like a second skin. He knew his boxers would be clinging to him as well, which is why he had left his trousers on for the moment.

She turned and faced him, and he drew a sharp breath. Second skin was an understatement. They may as well have not been there. He could see every detail of her breasts filling her dripping bra, and the panties that clung to her left little to the imagination.

She raised an amused eyebrow as he stared at her. “Getting a good look?”

“Er, sorry.”

When he said nothing further, she chuckled and approached him. He held his breath as she drew closer. She held out her hand and he blinked at it in confusion.

“Can I have those back?”

Oh. He looked down at her shorts in his hand. He had forgotten he was holding them.

“Yeah. Here.”

She took them out of his hand and rung them out right in front of him. Then she used them as a rag to wipe off the remaining drops of water from her arms and shoulders.

“Did I get all of it?”

He wasn’t sure how to respond. Not when there was so much flesh on display. She had practically invited him to watch her as she wiped herself down.

She stood before him a moment longer, a grin on her face. Then she walked back to her locker and stuffed her wet shorts inside. She returned with her towel on her shoulder, pretending not to be aware that he had watched her the entire time. “You’re too easy, Harry.”

He breathed out slowly. “You keep teasing me. Why?”

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The question took her by surprise, though it shouldn’t have. She opened her mouth to say ‘because it’s fun,’ then closed it, flustered at the expression on his face. If she had done this with Fred, he would have considered it an open invitation. He would have dragged her into the shower. So why was she doing it with Harry?

She had thrown her shirt at him as a joke. He had thrown his right back. It felt natural. Casual. Part of being two teammates who practiced together in the freezing rain and shared a locker room.

But why had she thrown her shorts at him? She hadn’t even considered it before doing it. And now she stood in front of him in her soaked underwear, knowing what she looked like, and knowing that he would look.

He stared into her eyes expectantly, waiting for an answer. She felt her face flush.

“I—honestly, I don’t know. I didn’t mean to, you know…” She gestured helplessly as she trailed off.

“Well, that’s not confusing at all.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Awkwardness lingered in the air. She felt at a loss for words. She had cornered him for her own amusement, she realized, and he had called her on it. What had she expected? For him to always stammer and look away? This was a boy who fought dragons.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” she finally said. “I’m being unfair.”

He smiled wryly. “I’m not complaining, Angie. You can walk around naked if you want. I’m just confused.”

Angie. He had never called her Angie. God, she hated that name. It was too familiar. Too common. But he didn’t know that. He continued to watch her, waiting on more of an explanation. She didn’t know what else to say. Her little game had already gone too far. She needed to stop and walk away.

“I didn’t mean to confuse you. I don’t know where my head is.”

“It’s okay.”

She smiled apologetically. She should move. Right now. Just turn and go back to her locker. But she didn’t. Somehow she couldn’t make herself do it, not when he kept staring into her eyes like that. Curious. Confused. Enthralled. For fuck’s sake, what was she doing?

“Still confused here,” he said softly, his eyes closing as he resisted the urge to drink in her body.

There was another silence as she stared into his face, his eyes closed out of respect or restraint. Suddenly she realized she wanted him to look at her. To make her feel like an object of desire. Especially since she could tease him from a position of safety. That had been the point, hadn’t it? Except right now her position felt anything but safe.

The words escaped her mouth before she could pull them back in. “You can look.”

His eyes opened and her pulse started to race. What the _fuck_ was she doing? This was Harry Potter. Her seeker. The-Boy-Who-Lived.

She watched his face as his gaze roved slowly over her body. She could feel it caressing her skin. She shivered, and something in the room shifted. Her body suddenly felt so very hot.

His eyes met hers again after his survey was complete. The look of longing and desire there almost took her breath away. She couldn’t guess what he saw in hers.

“I—I’ll stop,” she said. “I’m sorry for teasing you.”

The words sounded false to her ears. Mostly because she was still standing there, inviting his eyes to feast on her again.

“It’s okay,” he said, his voice thick.

“Alright then.”

Still she stood there, her eyes locked on his, awash in confusion and almost hypnotized by the moment. Her body felt like a taut string.

She took a deep breath and released it. “Want to know something interesting?”

“What?”

“The showers in here—they work just like the dorms. Same wards.”

Her heart pounded as the words left her. What in the ever-loving _fuck_ was she doing? It felt as if her mouth had seized control of her brain.

He breathed out softly. “I didn’t know that.”

“Now you do.”

He stared at her with a look of intensity that she only saw when he was chasing a snitch. She longed to make a joke, to shatter the atmosphere and take back some control, but instead she waited, watching something happen behind his eyes.

He stepped forward slowly, then pulled her toward him in one smooth motion. His mouth met hers and she stiffened only for a moment before she let him in.

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Her skin felt cold against his. Smooth and cold and supple, but they had both been freezing only moments ago. He wrapped his body around hers like a blanket, trying to feel every part of her against him, hardly daring to believe this was real. It felt as if it were happening to someone else.

Then he kissed her. Her tongue invited him in, and awareness flooded him.

Her smell. Her taste. The sound of her surprised breaths. She smelled like cold air and rain and quidditch. She tasted of something sweet he couldn’t identify. But her tongue was as warm as her body was cold, and he lost himself in it.

Her hands roamed through his wet hair. He pulled her closer and his hands slid down her back and below her waist. Then everything became a blur of movement.

Afterwards he didn’t remember how they made it to the showers. Or who had undressed whom.

But he would never forget watching the hot water cascade down her body. He almost didn’t want to touch her. She looked like a living sculpture—immortalized in stone but hot and wet and breathing. Her breasts were high and proud, glistening as rivulets of water swept down them. Her dark nipples stood erect in invitation. The little stripe of black hair between her legs concealed nothing from him.

She pulled her to him roughly, impatient with his admiration. Their mouths met hungrily. Hot water poured down on them and cloaked the room with steam. The only sounds were heavy breathing and running water and the embrace of slick bodies.

He filled his hands with her breasts, his caress tender and violent at once. She gasped and pulled his hair, squeezing her body against his and deepening their kiss.

Her hand found its way between his legs, and she was stroking him fiercely before he was even aware she had touched him. There was too much flesh to explore with his own hands, and not enough time to do it in.

It was all too much for him. Her hot tongue. Her grasping hand. Her hard nipples in his palms. His body felt like a live wire. Her grip on him grew frenzied and he burst in her hand without warning, interrupting their kiss only to pant as he decorated her belly with his release. The water poured down on them and washed it away as if it had never been there.

Their tongues entwined again, and he reached between her legs, desperate to please, instinct his only teacher.

His fingers were immediately engulfed by flesh so soft and warm that he could never have imagined it. She moaned and pulled his hair. He pushed inside her and heat surrounded his fingers so tightly he almost whimpered.

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Dear God, what was happening? Her body was molded around his like quicksilver. Their mouths were locked together and their tongues desperate to clash. She could barely breathe, or think, or do anything but surrender to the overwhelming desire that poured off them both.

She gasped as he slipped another finger inside her, stretching her so deliciously that she almost grabbed his wrist to push him deeper. Her body felt made for his fingers. Her hips bucked into his hand, needing more and more and more.

She hiked her leg high against his flanks and he grabbed it, supporting its weight with his hand. They stumbled back into the wall, and he used the leverage to press deeper inside her, his fingers twisting and searching. His thumb found her clit and she felt as if she might melt and join the water that was crashing around them.

“Fuck,” she breathed, and it was the first word either had spoken.

His thumb pressed harder and something deep in her belly quivered and released. It surged through her body like a tide and her mind blanked. She wrapped herself around him and bit his shoulder, her eyes shut, her breath coming in fierce pants, her whole body writhing around his fingers until she was spent.

She leaned heavily against the wall, almost in shock, his fingers still inside her. Then his lips were at her neck, delivering a caress so gentle she shivered. A hand kneaded her breast from underneath and then oh god his tongue teased her nipple and then soft lips suckled it and oh my god the ache between her legs returned with a roar and holy shit his fingers were moving again and he was worshipping her body and that was all that had ever mattered in life.

They attacked each other with renewed urgency, the sounds of their desperation drowned out by the water that cascaded down their bodies.

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A/N: There you go. The opening salvo. Next chapter, things get a bit awkward. Thanks for reading.


	4. Chapter 4

Quaffles and Broomsticks, Chapter 4

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She stared at the ceiling above her bed, almost afraid to rise for the day. That meant going to breakfast. Seeing him. Addressing the consequences of yesterday’s little tryst.

He was Harry Potter—her friend and teammate—but he was also The-Boy-Who-Lived, and off-limits for more reasons than she could name. What had she been thinking, provoking him like that?

The intensity of their encounter shocked her. It was like something out of a trashy romance novel. Lust didn’t seem like a strong enough word for what she had felt. Something frantic and reckless had consumed her. Before she could even think about what was happening, there was no turning back.

It wasn’t like her experience with Fred. That had been casual. A mostly silly and fun affair, even when they slept together. He had cracked jokes, and the mood was always light. It mirrored their rapport as friends, where they never spoke of serious things.

Yesterday had felt anything but casual. Her body had felt possessed from the first moment he touched her. Where the hell had that come from? Never had she dreamed of actually seducing him. And yet she had stood there and dared him.

It had ended weirdly. She hadn’t known what to say. In the shower, words had been superfluous. Afterwards, she couldn’t find the right ones. Neither could he. They had dressed themselves in silent contemplation and silent shock, neither addressing the ten-ton elephant in the room.

Now she had to face him, and she didn’t know how. What would he expect from her now?

She realized suddenly that she didn’t know Harry very well. There had always been the distance of quidditch and age between them. They were friends, but they had different roles to play. Captain. Prefect. Chaser. Seeker. Celebrity. Plus whatever you called his role as the magnet for everything dark in their world. Those roles were a natural barrier.

They had annihilated them yesterday, and it scared her.

She took a deep breath and tried to relax. A headache was coming on. She was already very late for breakfast, and there was no point in putting off the day further. She would have to talk to him and hope he understood.

She rose and prepared for classes in a futile attempt to turn off her mind.

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She didn’t show up for breakfast, and his dread only grew. He ate in silence, ignoring the concerned looks that Hermione gave him. She watched his moods this year more closely than he liked. Her mothering of him was comforting sometimes, but he didn’t want it right now.

Yesterday’s encounter with Angelina replayed in his mind on a constant loop. He had barely slept again, but not because of a headache or strange dreams. Vivid flashes of memory assaulted him over and over. The smell of her. The taste of her. The heat between her legs. The sound of her moans.

It had happened so fast. Shockingly fast. She had given him an invitation to look, but he had done so much more than that. He had acted on instinct, barely aware of what he was doing.

It almost didn’t seem real in the light of day. It was just another fantasy, identical to those he entertained every night in bed.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had made a mistake. That he had taken advantage of her, despite her teasing of him. And yet he desperately wanted to touch her again. His mind felt as if it were tying itself in knots.

He didn’t want to speculate on what her absence meant. He sat through morning classes in a daze, barely able to pay attention. Flitwick asked him to demonstrate a summoning charm and he didn’t hear him until the silence grew uncomfortable.

Mercifully she showed up to lunch. She sat with Fred, George, and Alicia, but hardly spoke. She didn’t make eye contact with him and he couldn’t decipher her mood.

When she rose to leave, he couldn’t deal with it any longer. He followed her as casually as he could. She glanced behind and saw him coming. She bent over, pretending to tie her shoe, and told everyone else to continue without her.

He kneeled next to her. “Angelina.”

“Hey.”

The little smile on her face was awkward but still the most reassuring thing he had ever seen.

“Can we talk?” he asked, hoping the apprehension in his voice wasn’t obvious.

“Yeah. On the pitch later?”

“I’ll be there.”

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She took a deep breath and opened the door to the locker room. As expected, he was there waiting on her. He stood from the bench and watched her as she entered.

The look on his face made her falter. Intense. Almost afraid. Filled with the same dread she was feeling. This was going to be just as difficult as she expected. Fuck.

She almost decided to tell him they’d talk later. That they’d practice first to dispel the lingering tension. She discarded the idea with reluctance. Neither of them would be able to focus, and the awkwardness in the air would increase ten-fold.

She sat on her own bench, wanting to keep some distance between them.

“Lovely weather today, isn’t it?” he said.

She laughed. Maybe he would surprise her. “I suppose we need to talk.”

“Yeah, we do.”

“I’m sorry,” she began.

He closed his eyes as if preparing for a blow. “For what?”

“For letting things get out of hand. I didn’t mean…”

Her composure felt like it was evaporating. She wasn’t even certain what she was trying to say.

He opened his eyes and searched hers. “So—you regret it?”

She looked away. “No. That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

Fuck. Why couldn’t he give her a solid foothold? To let him down easy or—what?

“I meant that I didn’t expect that to happen. I was teasing you and it was unfair. I’m still stunned we did that.”

She looked at him again and cursed herself when she saw the blank mask he wore on his face.

“So you do regret it.”

“No, Harry. That’s not—this is difficult for me, okay? I’m not trying to make things weird. Will you tell me what you’re thinking?”

He took a breath. “I’m thinking,” he said slowly, “that it didn’t quite feel real. I know you just invited me to look, and I—I’m sorry if I got carried away and took advantage. That’s not what I intended.”

That’s what he was worried about? She shook her head. “Believe me, it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t want it to.”

“Alright.”

“I was just shocked, okay? That was intense. Very intense. It felt serious, and I need you to understand…”

She stared at the ceiling, again trying to find the proper words. Speaking with candor somehow felt dangerous.

“You need me to understand that it was just a little vacation,” he finished for her. “A one-off. You’re worried that I’ll suddenly declare my love for you and follow you around like a lost puppy.”

She almost laughed at his insightfulness. Relief flooded her.

“I’m not stupid, Angie,” he continued. “I’m not pining after you. And I don’t want things to be weird either. I just want you to be direct with me, because I’m out of my depth here.”

This time she did laugh. Thank fucking Merlin. Once again, she was reminded that she didn’t know Harry very well outside of quidditch. Her image of him as an innocent firstie hadn’t completely disappeared. But then she hadn’t participated in all of his adventures. The DA had just begun to open her eyes to other sides of him.

“Okay,” she said, feeling some solid ground beneath her feet. “Let’s just be blunt then. But first of all, don’t call me Angie. I hate that name.”

“Sorry. I didn’t know.”

“I know you didn’t. I’m not pissed.”

He nodded and waited for her to speak.

She examined his face, her curiosity overcoming the awkwardness of the situation. “Do you regret it?”

“I don’t regret a second of it. It was amazing. But if you want to just forget it happened, we can.”

“I don’t want to forget it either, Harry. I just want you to understand my situation. I’ve only got a few more months at Hogwarts. Then I’ll be gone to who knows where.”

“I know that.”

“Things are a mess for me right now, and I know they’re a mess for you too. I don’t want to make my life any more complicated than it already is. I can’t deal with more.”

“I wasn’t planning to ask you to Hogsmeade so I could unload my burdens on you.”

“Good, because I would say no.”

He smiled as their normal rapport began to reestablish itself. “What happens now then?”

Her eyes sought out his, and she considered her response. It was a good question, and she still wasn’t sure of the answer. “What do you want to happen?”

“I know what I don’t want to happen. I don’t want to lose a friend. As amazing as yesterday was, I want to come out here and fly with you, because it’s the best part of my day.”

She smirked at his sincerity. He had evaded the real question, but given her a revealing answer to another. Harry really was quite adorable, she decided.

“It’s the best part of my day too. You’re helping me out on the pitch, in more ways than one.”

“I’m glad. Even if I suck.”

“You only suck at keeping. You excel at everything else.”

“So then…we just go back to normal and pretend it never happened?”

“We could do that, if that’s what you want.”

He could barely conceal his disappointment, though he tried, and it told her all she needed to know. She made a split-second decision. She paused for a moment to marvel at it. Merlin, she was really about to do this.

“You said something about a vacation.”

“I did.”

“The way I see it,” she said carefully, “if two quidditch mates help each other out when they’re off the pitch, it doesn’t have to be weird. As long as they keep it to themselves. And don’t try to make it into something it isn’t.”

She could see his breath coming quicker. Her own blood was pounding through her veins. She had just spoken the words, and there was no taking them back now.

“If the two mates agreed on that ahead of time—that they would keep things casual and not flirt in the halls, or go to Hogsmeade together—then it could be fun for them to take a little vacation sometimes. In here. And only in here.”

“Yeah, it would,” he said softly.

They regarded each other in silence. The air felt charged again. Her words had dispelled one kind of awkwardness and replaced it with another. The look on his face almost made her shiver. She prayed she had made the right decision.

She cleared her throat. “Well, then. Nobody goes on holiday until I get some training in. You ready to take some punishment on the pitch?”

He laughed for the first since they entered the room. “Been dreaming about it all day.”

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He was off his game today. There was no denying it. But thankfully so was she. She was telegraphing her shots more often; looking at him differently as she approached the goals. Normally she looked like a predator chasing prey. Today her eyes lingered on him longer than usual, as if she weren’t seeing a keeper when she looked at him.

Still she was able to embarrass him with her skill. He flew to the ground and fetched yet another missed quaffle. He returned to find her waiting on him in the hoops.

“This is pointless,” she said. “I’m fucking distracted and so are you.”

“Sorry. Want me to yell at you to get your head in the game?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re not the Captain just yet.”

“Then I’ll defer to your superior wisdom.”

“Don’t get cheeky. I don’t want this to keep happening. I came up here to get sharp.”

“Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, Harry. Let’s just hit the showers and pretend this practice didn’t happen.”

He followed her to the ground. He felt bad for ruining her training session, but it wasn’t entirely his fault. She was just as distracted as he was. Did she already regret what she said earlier? Or did she feel the same anticipation he did?

As they entered the locker room, he could hardly control his nerves. He stowed his broom and began disrobing. This situation was new to him. Was there some way she expected him to talk to her when they were alone?

She tossed her t-shirt at him again and he caught it. Business as usual then. He tossed it back, no longer hesitating to cast appreciative looks at her body.

“Not as much fun to tease you when I know you won’t look away,” she said.

“I can pretend to stammer and blush if you want. Then you can take advantage of me again.”

“I didn’t take advantage of you the first time. I seem to recall you mauling me.”

“Only after you stood in front of me and dared me.”

“Touché.”

She drew her wand and cast two different locking charms at the door, plus an alarm charm. Harry could hardly breathe his heart was racing so fast.

“Better safe than sorry,” she said. “I don’t think the twins need to know about this, do you?”

He snorted. He couldn’t imagine the teasing that would ensue. But another thought hadn’t occurred to him until just now.

“What about Fred?”

“What about him?”

“I thought you and he—well, with the Yule Ball and everything.”

“That wasn’t serious. We sort of dated, I guess. A couple times. But right now he’s chasing a Hufflepuff with huge boobs.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good. Not that he’s chasing someone else, I mean, but—”

She laughed. “Harry. Relax. No weirdness, remember?”

He nodded, but still felt adrift. Yesterday he had been guided by instinct, his rational mind barely engaged. Today he had no idea how to approach her. He had never imagined having such an arrangement with Angelina.

He watched as she removed the last of her clothes, no longer hesitant to be nude in front of him. He followed suit and dropped his underwear to the floor. He was already hard. There was no chance of hiding his desire for her.

She looked him over. “Eager, are we?”

“Just a little.”

“Let’s hit the showers then.”

He followed her into the boys’ showers. Neither realized until later that they had both forgotten their towels.

She turned on the water and stood beneath it. He couldn’t resist staring at her again. At the way the water flowed down her body, gathering here and there, before coalescing into larger streams that left a glossy shine everywhere.

She motioned him forward with a smile. “You like to watch, don’t you?”

“You have no idea.”

He ran a finger gently between her breasts, tracing the smooth skin there. “Your skin is amazing.”

“Developing a black girl fetish?”

“Developing an Angelina Johnson fetish,” he said, and she laughed.

She gently caressed his cock with a finger and then squeezed it, testing its firmness. That single squeeze almost overpowered him.

“I like what I’m seeing too. I didn’t get a good look last time.”

She pulled him under the water and captured his mouth with hers. Their kiss was different this time. It was less urgent, but no less needy. Her tongue caressed his languidly. He tried to memorize every second of the sensation. His hands rose to her breasts, and she breathed hard into his mouth.

He took his time exploring them. Soft, firm flesh filled his hands, and hard nipples teased him. His hands wandered to her ass, and he marveled at the taut perfection of it. She deepened their kiss.

Their caresses grew more intense, and she pulled away. He looked into her eyes, and was shocked at the desire he saw there. Without a word she went to her knees. Warm lips suddenly engulfed him. Something deep in his abdomen quivered and he tried not to lose control. He wanted to watch her, but it was just too much. He felt her hand wrap around him and squeeze. She took him fully in her mouth and…dear God.

So soft and wet and she was licking and teasing and suckling and it was Angelina and she _wanted_ to do this with him and _fuck_ —his thoughts jumbled together as his body’s pleasure overwhelmed all else.

He held on to the very edge as long as he could. But her soft tongue caressed his crown and it was too much.

“Angelina.”

The word was barely audible over the roar of the water beating down around them, but she understood the message.

She withdrew her mouth and pointed him lower. Two quick strokes and he came undone, decorating her breasts with his release. It dripped down her body in stripes and the water slowly swept it away.

He was still lost in bliss when she stood and pulled his mouth to hers. “Feel like returning the favor?”

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The floor was hard, but it didn’t matter. She barely felt it. The only thing that mattered was the soft tongue between her legs.

She ran her hands through his wet hair as he sought to please her. The caress of his tongue was hesitant, but his fingers were firm and they went deep and oh fucking Merlin he added another one.

He was worshipping her body and she had never imagined such a feeling.

She pulled his head closer, encouraging his tongue to press harder. They had barely exchanged words since they reached the showers. They spoke with hands and mouths and tongues instead, and the urgency that overpowered her yesterday returned with a vengeance. Her body thrummed with desire.

“Harry,” she whispered. “I need you.”

He looked up. She was vaguely aware that it would be his first time. That he might not want it to happen on the floor of the quidditch showers. But her body was on fire. He was stoking that fire, and it felt like it might soon rage out of control.

He stared at her intently. “Truly?”

“If you want.”

He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t ask for guidance. She spread her legs further and he lined himself up, testing and prodding. Every little brush felt like he was teasing her. He slipped inside her and she couldn’t stop the moan that escaped her lips.

Her legs wrapped around him, pulling him deeper. He stilled. She drank in the look of wonder on his face. He closed his eyes and thrust into her just once, long and slow. Then kissed her with such passion she could barely breathe.

They moved in unison. She couldn’t tell where her body ended and his began. She only knew there was nothing casual about this. It would have felt sacrilegious to stop. The thought scared her, but she pushed it aside.

Their kiss grew lustier. She wrapped her legs around him even tighter. He thrust deep inside her, harder and faster, and she panted into his mouth. An ache built within her and spread, suffusing her body with heat. She felt like she might explode.

She broke their kiss and gripped his hair fiercely, her eyes closed. A spasm of ecstasy rippled through her and she gasped out his name. He thrust into her so hard her body shook. He moaned and she felt his release deep inside her.

Afterwards she lay panting on her back. He still covered her body, unmoving and breathing just as hard. The water flowed down upon them, but otherwise the silence was profound.

She longed to lighten the atmosphere with a joke, but no words came. She desperately hoped she didn’t lose her grip on what this was and what it wasn’t.

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A/N: Thanks for reading. I love to hear your feedback.


	5. Chapter 5

Quaffles and Broomsticks, Chapter 5

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They practiced together three more times that week. Each session ended on the floor of the quidditch showers. It was neither comfortable nor dignified, but it was private and it was theirs.

The gloom that had darkened Harry’s mood for months didn’t dissipate, but he could sense a light in the fog. During classes with Umbridge, he sought it out as if it were a distant patronus.

Her smell sometimes lingered on him. The day after one of their trysts, he would catch the faintest whiff of her and breathe it in deeply. He would close his eyes and find himself in an alternate universe consisting only of warm water, hard bodies, and soft caresses.

It was all he could do not to speak to her during the day. To watch her or make eye contact or offer a little smile. Sometimes he would pull out the Marauder’s Map and just watch her feet. It didn’t matter whether she was sitting in Transfiguration or studying in the library with Alicia. It was comforting to watch her. To wonder if she fantasized about him when they weren’t together.

This was exactly the sort of behavior she had been worried about, he knew. That he would follow her around. Seek out something more. He knew that but couldn’t help himself. She was still opaque to him in some ways, despite their camaraderie on the pitch. Outside of it, they did most of their talking with their bodies. It was a language he had yet to master.

It was harmless to watch her on the map, he reasoned, as long as he kept it to himself. It wasn’t as if he wanted to hold her hand and whisper sweet nothings in her ear. The idea of taking Angelina to Madam Puddifoot’s was appalling. And yet their secret felt strangely like hope, and he couldn’t resist it.

It dominated his dreams at night. The mystery of the corridor and its beckoning door felt less urgent. He was still curious about it, and the dream was persistent, but now it warred with visions of her dark skin and open thighs and wanton moans.

Only Hermione noticed the subtle change in his mood. His classwork hadn’t suffered, even if he was frequently distracted. She praised him for gaining control of his emotions, assuming that his occlumency training must be working.

He looked at his watch. Hagrid’s class would be over in less than an hour. Then he could stop handling flobberworms and handle broomsticks and quaffles and soft flesh instead.

His abdomen tingled in anticipation. He would have to be more careful from now on, to sneak in and out of the castle with his cloak, lest he arouse any suspicions. He was growing to depend on his sessions with Angelina, and he didn’t want to imagine his life without them.

He accidentally squeezed one of his flobberworms too firmly and it made a barely audible squeal. Hermione looked at him oddly and he tried to ignore it.

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She watched him as he demonstrated the spell. Reducto. Seemed simple enough, and she liked blowing things up. There was no way she would cast it on a person unless her life was in danger. Just seeing what Harry’s spell could do was enough to turn her stomach.

She felt his gaze linger on her as he watched everyone practice the wand movement. He was more subtle than she had expected, to be honest. He hadn’t attempted to speak to her during the day. Not at meals or in between classes or in the common room, save the casual greeting.

Even so, the situation was becoming more dangerous by the day.

Every time they practiced together, their locker room sessions grew in length. The risk of discovery grew alongside them. Alicia was already asking where she disappeared to, knowing that she didn’t spend three hours in the frigid air.

And yet she didn’t want to stop. Or to meet less often.

It wasn’t just the thrill of it. The risk of it. Or the sex itself. It was Harry.

Merlin, he was intense. She felt she knew him better now, even if they rarely spoke outside the pitch. He was more earnest than anyone she had ever met. There was simply no pretense to him. It made him seem more of an adult than she was in some ways, even though he retained a strange innocence in others.

It felt almost against the rules to talk of serious things when they were together. Their rapport on the pitch hadn’t changed. He was still the same Harry there. Except there was a look in his eyes that made her shiver every time his gaze passed over her. It filled her with a sense of longing that was more than physical, and sometimes it scared her.

His attention to her body was worshipful. It made her ache with desire when she thought of it, and was invading her thoughts constantly of late. Whenever she could, she closed her eyes and imagined the feel of his hands caressing the length of her body, the feel of his skin against hers, the weight of him pressing her into the floor.

She shivered, and Alicia looked at her oddly. Shit. She had been staring at him, not paying attention to what she was doing.

She dare not voice her growing feelings for him. She didn’t fully understand them herself. But voicing them would dispel the magic of their little bubble. It would blur the line she had made clear to him.

Their time together was becoming the only part of her day she truly enjoyed. NEWTs were an annoyance. The lack of owls an increasing cause for despair. But when he pulled her close to his body, everything else faded away.

“Angelina.”

“What?”

“I said—are you going to practice the spell or not? It’s your turn.”

“Oh. Right.”

She stepped up to the line and carefully cast her curse at the waiting dummy. It barely made a dent. She refocused, and imagined that it looked like Umbridge. Her next curse exploded against the dummy’s torso, sending destroyed fabric everywhere. Much better.

She returned to the back of the line, trying to ignore the frown that Alicia was giving her.

Tomorrow. She only had to wait till tomorrow. Then they could practice again and she would be less distracted. It no longer mattered that his keeping skills were awful. She was as sharp as she was going to get, even if he had been a professional.

It was what happened afterwards that mattered now. Then again, she realized with sudden clarity, why did they need to wait for afterwards? Maybe she should just bend over a bench tomorrow as soon as he arrived. Demand that he take her from behind. Did they really need to fly for so long? The thought sent a throb straight to her core, and she shot a glance at him. He was helping Lovegood, but he looked up and met her eyes, as if he could feel her gaze on him.

Merlin, she was fucked.

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The next day it poured rain. And the day after. And the day after that.

She could have endured rain, but this was a fierce thunderstorm, one that showed no signs of abating. Not even she was crazy enough to venture outside.

Her irritation with Mother Nature was becoming unbearable.

He seemed to feel it too, if the frustrated looks he gave her were any sign.

Tonight she sat in the library, trying to focus on the subtleties of animate to inanimate transfiguration. It was futile.

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He approached the little table where she had sequestered herself. He had no legitimate reason to be there, but he could bear it no longer. Careful not to attract the attention of anyone nearby, he paused for a moment beside her and pretended to examine a shelf of books on advanced arithmancy.

He dropped a small scrap of parchment on her table.

She looked around cautiously and opened it.

_Room of Requirement?_

She scrawled out a response and slid it toward him. He picked it up and walked away as casually as possible.

He opened it as soon as he was out of sight. _Twenty minutes. You go first._

The sigh of relief escaped him involuntarily, and he smiled for the first time in three days.

He arrived first, careful to remain under his cloak. He imagined only a room with a bed in it, and the room provided exactly that. It was large and soft and adorned with garish Gryffindor colors. They had never actually used a bed together, he suddenly realized. He couldn’t stop the laughter that followed, even though he was alone.

He had changed in the last month. He could feel it. The threat of Voldemort still loomed. The threat of Umbridge loomed even closer, and there was no escaping his weekly torture with Snape. But he could separate himself from them better now. It had only taken a month of secret trysts with his quidditch Captain on their locker room floor. Now they had upgraded to a bed in the Room of Requirement.

She showed up on time, a smile on her face the moment she closed the door. They exchanged no words, instead speaking with tongues and wandering hands. Soon their clothes littered the floor.

She pushed him on his back, and he didn’t protest. He liked this position. He could look directly into her eyes. His hands could explore every inch of her. He could admire her breasts as she rode him as roughly or as gently as she desired.

She wanted him to be rough sometimes. To bend her over and take her as if they were animals. He liked that too. But this was his favorite. The slow, languid movements, where she savored every inch of him, and he could feel how wet she was, how needy, and could relish the fact that it was him she needed.

She sighed in bliss as he slipped inside her. She wriggled her hips, plunging him as far as he could go, and he closed his eyes. If only this feeling could go on forever.

She moved sensuously atop his body and his hands moved to her breasts of their own accord. They filled his hands, and he almost wanted to throw her to the bed so he could take a nipple in his mouth. Later. Later there would be time for whatever he wanted.

He opened his eyes. She was staring at his face as she slowly raised and lowered herself on him. Her grip was so warm and soft that every penetration felt like a loving caress. Intimate. Right. Like something lost had been briefly returned to him.

He couldn’t tell what she was saying with her eyes. He almost didn’t want to know. He was afraid it would leave him disappointed. But they seemed to reflect his own longing back at him—something stronger than mere desire, and it only made him want her more.

She leaned forward and captured his mouth hungrily with hers. Her body writhed against his faster now. He grabbed her ass and squeezed as hard as he could, willing her to take whatever she needed from him.

Her lips pulled away, her eyes closed in concentration as her breath came in soft pants.

“Almost there,” she said, and a moment later he felt her squeeze him deliciously from every direction. She moaned and ground her hips into him, and he moaned in return.

He released inside her in a warm flood. When the brief moment of ecstasy passed, he thought he could feel the pulse of her heartbeat where their bodies conjoined. Her face was still contorted in bliss, the only sound their heavy breathing.

She stopped moving atop him. Her face relaxed, and for once he thought she looked sated and free. She opened her eyes and stared into his, and neither could resist a little smile.

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They lay together in silence for several minutes, basking in the afterglow of their release. Her hand caressed his chest, absently playing with the sparse hairs that grew there. She would never have imagined herself to be in this situation with Harry Potter. Not just fucking him in secret, but needing to fuck him, as if it were the only thing that mattered in the world.

The strangeness of the moment struck her, and she laughed.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“About how much more comfortable this bed is than the floor,” she lied.

He chuckled and pulled her closer to him, wanting to feel more of her flesh touching his.

“I don’t care where we meet, as long as you keep riding me like that.”

“Just doing my best to train my seeker properly. Gotta keep you in shape.”

“I’ll be ready for the pros under your tutelage. Speaking of the pros…”

“Yeah?”

He squeezed her. “Have you gotten word from any teams yet?”

She stiffened at the uncomfortable reminder. “No. You’d know if I did.”

“I’m sure they’ll contact you soon.”

“Maybe.”

“You’re a brilliant player, Angelina. You’ll make it somewhere.”

“I hope so. It’s the only chance I’ve got.”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed. She hadn’t had a candid conversation about her place in the magical world with anyone, let alone Harry. It almost felt wrong to bring the outside world into their little refuge. But somehow it felt safe to explain it to him. She rested her head on his shoulder so she wouldn’t have to look him in the eye.

“I’m a muggleborn, Harry. And I’m black. And I’m a girl. Nothing I do in a classroom is ever going to matter. I’m never going to have a decent job in this world unless it’s quidditch. That’s why I’m out there busting my ass every day, and why I want to strangle every owl I see.”

He was silent for a long moment, and she didn’t want to know what his face looked like. She was scared to see his pity. Afraid that it might affect the weird intimacy of their time together.

“I had no idea you felt like that.”

She shrugged against him. “I don’t talk about it. No one does. But every muggleborn feels that way, I think. I’m one of the lucky ones, because I stand out at something. But it’s the only thing. And if I can’t do it, I’ve got nothing. I’m not going to marry somebody just to stay in this world.”

“They don’t hire muggleborns at the Ministry?”

“Not many, and never for a decent job.”

He contemplated her answer in silence, and she couldn’t guess what he was thinking.

“I’m sorry I ruined your season,” he finally said. “I didn’t realize.”

She lifted her leg across him, drawing them closer together. “Don’t pity me, Harry. You didn’t ruin anything. That bitch did. But that’s why I was so mad at you for so long. The last two years it’s felt like a conspiracy against my only dream.”

“Fuck, I hate this place sometimes,” he said bitterly. “You’re worth more than all of Slytherin house combined.”

“I won’t argue with you.”

“I feel like a muggleborn too most of the time,” he said, and his words caught her by surprise. How could The-Boy-Who-Lived understand what it was like to be a muggleborn?

“What do you mean?”

“I grew up in the muggle world. Didn’t even know about magic until I was 11. Then I got here, and they told me I was famous. That I did something impossible when I was still a baby. ‘It’s great to have you back, Harry. Oh, and by the way, there’s an immortal psychopath out there who desperately wants you dead.’”

She snorted at his sarcasm. She had never heard him speak so openly about himself.

“Then I find out he’s got followers, and that I’m going to school with some of them. And that every year, someone or something will try to kill me. And that half the people I know will turn on me, again and again. If Hagrid had told me all that at the start, I might have just said no thanks.”

The resentment in his tone surprised her. She knew he was under an enormous amount of stress—knew that there were people who wished him dead—but she had never considered what it might be like to be him.

“I just want to be left alone,” he continued. “To be normal. And there’s absolutely no chance of it. Now or ever. If I survive all this, I’ll be even more famous. If I don’t—well, I’ll be dead.”

“Why don’t you just leave then?”

“Why don’t you? This is where I belong. I’ve got friends, and I’m not a coward.”

She lay across his chest, his words echoing in her ears. There had always seemed to be a gulf between her world and Harry’s. They played the same sport. They were teammates. They went to the same school. But he may as well have existed in a different universe.

And yet he felt the same way about his life as she did hers.

“I didn’t realize how hard it is for you.”

He squeezed her gently. “Lot of that going around right now, it seems.”

They lay against each other in silence for a long time. She had never expressed her resentment or loathing so clearly to anyone, lest it sour her relationships. And yet The-Boy-Who-Lived—no, _Harry_ —listened and understood every word.

She closed her eyes and almost dozed off. Something had shifted after their conversation. She prayed it wouldn’t complicate the little pocket of peace they had carved for themselves. She needed it. And if it turned into something else…

But no. She was two years older. Leaving Hogwarts. And he was The-Boy-Who-Lived, no matter how much he loathed it. She stamped down on the thought. Best to just enjoy these little moments for what they were, for as long as they still could.

Her hand drifted between his legs and she casually fondled him. He was hard again in no time at all.

She chuckled. “Someone’s insatiable.”

“You’re the one playing with it.”

She grinned and leaned in to kiss him, but he rolled on top of her, pinning her to the bed with his weight.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Harry went to a knee as Snape ended the curse. His head felt like it might burst. Whatever relief Angelina’s presence granted him from his nightly dreams, it did nothing to prevent Snape’s brutal assaults during the day.

He stood up, breathing hard and glaring at Snape. The man was actually smirking. He enjoyed doing this to him. Fucking bastard.

‘Clear your mind.’ What does that even mean? How was he supposed to think about nothing while under attack?

He braced himself as Snape raised his wand for another assault. He spoke the hated word and Harry’s mind once again felt like it didn’t belong to him. No matter how much he willed himself to resist the intruder, he didn’t understand how to do it. Memories flickered by in the peripheral vision of his mind. He could do nothing to stop the flow.

He saw Ron laughing at something he said last week. Hermione attacking a dummy in the DA. Umbridge smiling as he wrote lines with her cursed quill. Malfoy taunting him over his ‘remedial potions lessons.’ He could almost feel the cold as he swept through the air on a broom.

No.

Snape was aiming for recent memories, he realized with horror. Memories of people. Friends. Enemies. An image of Angelina in the locker room rose unbidden in his mind.

_No._

Something in his mind slammed shut, refusing absolutely to allow Snape access. The greasy bastard was not allowed to see that. Ever. It wasn’t just a matter of privacy. That was an invasion of his personal sanctuary that simply couldn’t happen. He would die before he allowed it.

He blinked rapidly. It took him a moment to realize the spell had ended. He was still standing, breathing hard and trying to focus. But Snape was lying on the ground cradling his head.

The Professor groaned and slowly stood. He glared at Harry hatefully. “Is there a reason you suddenly decided to display the barest aptitude, Potter?”

“Must be your excellent instruction, sir,” he retorted with equal hatred.

“Do not mock me, child. Twenty points from Gryffindor.”

He stared back impassively, trying to murder Snape with his eyes.

Snape raised his wand threateningly. “It is long past time for you to learn some respect. I’m going to enjoy this. _Legilimens_!”

He hissed the spell and Harry felt something slam almost physically into his skull. An enormous pressure built, so painful that he cried out in agony. Snape seemed to have no idea what he was looking for, focused only on causing pain. He pulled forth memories at random, daring him to respond. The images flowed by so quickly it almost felt like he was having a seizure.

A glimpse of bared dark skin flew by. _No!_

He shouted at Snape in his mind and the pressure stopped all at once. He fell to his knees in relief, his body shaking. His mind felt blank, as if it had been turned inside out. Dark spots crept into his vision and he vomited onto the floor.

It took him almost a minute to gather his wits. When he looked up, Snape was massaging his temples and glaring at him malevolently.

“As I suspected, you have simply been too arrogant to try before now.”

“Fuck you,” Harry gritted out.

“Another twenty points from Gryffindor. Get out.”

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

That night the dreams of the corridor returned, more vivid than they had ever been. He felt hypnotized by the door, and no amount of willpower, no comforting memory of escape, could stop him from needing to get beyond it.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing. We’ve got four chapters to go.


	6. Chapter 6

Quaffles and Broomsticks, Chapter 6

It happened on a Tuesday morning in late March. He was eating breakfast flanked by Ron and Hermione, trying not to sulk too much. The weather had warmed, and regular quidditch practices had resumed. That meant Angelina had no time to fly with him. Not that they were doing much flying in the past two weeks anyway. They were now using the Room of Requirement to steal away whenever they could.

Still, he missed flying. And with more people outside, he couldn’t fly and escape notice. Umbridge would ban him from the air altogether if she discovered him.

He looked up when the morning mail owls flew into the Great Hall. He knew Angelina watched them closely. He had begun paying attention too.

A huge brown barn owl flew toward her and hovered in the air, flapping its wings and nearly upending a pitcher of pumpkin juice. She reared back in surprise, then cautiously removed the letter it carried. It was a formal envelope. Its edges shined with gold embossing in the morning light.

He watched as she opened it with trembling hands. Her eyes grew wide as she read, and then a huge smile spread across her face. The twins and Alicia attempted to look over her shoulder, but she pulled the letter tightly against her chest, as if afraid someone would snatch it from her. She looked up and stared directly at Harry.

He raised both eyebrows in question.

“The Harpies,” she whispered, her face a picture of relief and disbelief. She said it louder, so everyone nearby could hear. “The Harpies! I got an invite from the fucking _Harpies_!”

The noise level at the Gryffindor table exploded. It wasn’t often that a Hogwarts player was invited to try out for a professional team. It happened once or twice a year at most. Everyone at the table was soon whispering excitedly and gathering around to offer their congratulations.

Angelina sat in the midst of the chaos and just smiled at the letter, reading it over and over. The sight made his heart soar, even when Umbridge strolled to the table to take points from the whole house.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

She giggled— _giggled_ —when Fred pushed another shot of firewhiskey into her hands, and then she giggled again when she realized she was giggling. Angelina Johnson didn’t giggle. Angelina Johnson kicked ass. And names. Or took names, maybe. Her mind was a little unclear on the details, but she had lost count of how many drinks had passed her lips.

The party in the common room raged around her. Gryffindor hadn’t had much to celebrate this year, and her recruitment by the Harpies was a good reason to let loose. The twins had somehow smuggled in a keg of butterbeer. Seventh-years had brought out their stashes of firewhiskey and the sounds of drunken revelry filled the room. The prefects weren’t even trying to control anyone. Not when the celebration was for one of their own.

Her face hurt from smiling so much. The muscles were out of practice. She downed the shot and belched flame, producing more cheers around her. She would be paying for this in the morning, but tonight she didn’t care. Tonight everything was right with the world.

Both Weasley twins lifted her from the ground. A moment later she was sitting on their shoulders as they led the whole room in a round of ‘For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow.’ New lyrics were invented on the spot, and soon the song had deteriorated into laughter. Quidditch fight songs sprang up soon after, and the competing songs sounded like a house-wide shouting match.

Her eyes sought out Harry.

She hadn’t been able to talk to him since she received the letter. Not intimately, at least. He had congratulated her with everyone else, even slipping in a hug, but her time had been monopolized all day. Students of other houses approached her, happy to hear the news. Even Professor McGonagall had summoned her to her office to extend congratulations.

She found him sitting with his friends in the corner. Every so often she would feel his gaze on her, and she would smile in his direction, careful even in her drunken state not to be too obvious. He was drinking too, she noticed. Enough that the look of constant tension he wore had faded.

Ron Weasley gesticulated wildly about something, no doubt related to quidditch, and he laughed. Hermione Granger pretended to listen, though she was clearly bored out of her mind. She had to admire Hermione’s dedication to her boys, even though she often seemed to have little in common with them.

He looked up again and their eyes met. His shined with happiness, and she knew it was for her. More than anyone else, she wanted to celebrate this night with Harry. Others had helped her reach this milestone, of course, and no one even knew of his help on the pitch. But it was he whom she wanted to pull into a lusty embrace; he whom she wanted to laugh and shout for joy with—not Alicia or Fred or George or Lee or Katie or anyone else.

She knew she should be shocked by that revelation. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was. But right now she didn’t care.

The night wound down, and he was still there. The lateness of the hour had sent most of the house to bed. Only the most drunken of the revelers remained. Some were passed out and snoring in the common room. The twins were still there, as were Lee Jordan and Katie Bell. Harry had joined their little group, casually listening in on their tales of quidditch glories past.

She felt his eyes on her again and could stand it no longer.

She stumbled to her feet and raised her empty glass in the air. “Thanks for the booze and the laughs, mates. But I need some fresh air. I’m going for a walk!”

Katie laughed and tried to pull her back down. “It’s way after curfew! And you’re drunk!”

“I don’t give a niffler’s tits!” she exclaimed, then frowned. “Do nifflers have tits?”

Fred and George roared with laughter.

“I don’t know,” said Fred, “but we’ll look into it for you. For academic purposes, of course.”

She looked at Harry and grinned, then slowly walked to the portrait hole.

“Wait, are you serious?” Katie called out. “You’ll get caught out there.”

“Fuck it,” she replied. “I’m a prefect. I’m in the mood to do a patrol, and I don’t need company. Good night, lads and lasses. Don’t wait up.”

They laughed as she exited the room.

“Should we drag her back?” Lee asked.

Katie shrugged. “She’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.”

No one noticed that Harry had surreptitiously slipped away to his dorm.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

He whipped off his cloak immediately after he entered the room. She was already lying on the bed, half-disrobed.

“You did it,” he said with a huge smile.

She laughed and rose to greet him. “Hell yes, I did. Now c’mere and molest me.”

She pulled him to the bed and almost threw him onto it. A moment later she was on top of him, kissing him and fumbling with his clothes at the same time. She only got him half-undressed before he tossed her on her back and removed the rest of her clothes.

She laughed and spread her legs as he peppered kisses along her belly and inner thighs. He took a moment to admire the beauty of her dark lips and the soft pink flesh within, already shining and waiting impatiently on him.

He kissed her clit and nuzzled it with his nose, trying to make her feel how much he adored her. A month ago, it had only been her body. She had stoked his lust with her teasing. Touching her flesh was like a fantasy brought to life. Now he adored everything about her. She had become a refuge for him, and the closer he grew to her, the more he wanted to see her happy. Exactly as she had been tonight.

She moaned above him and gripped his hair as he gently slid his fingers inside her. He stroked and suckled and licked, delighting in the way she caught his head between her thighs, squeezing him in approval.

He had watched her all night, dreaming of this moment. Everyone else had their moment with her, and he couldn’t help but feel jealous of her attention. He had tried to communicate everything with his eyes—happiness, pride, affection. But there was also a pang of loss that he couldn’t push away.

Her longed-for success had driven home one inescapable fact. She would be leaving soon. Starting a different life. Playing quidditch with professionals. And he would be stuck here, enduring more of whatever miseries Fate had in store for him. The pain of the revelation hurt him far more than he expected, and he resolved to savor every remaining moment they had together.

“Oh, bloody fuck,” she groaned above him.

He kissed her clit tenderly and teased its underside with his tongue. He knew her body now. That spot never failed to make her tremble and writhe. He pressed his fingers deeper inside her and her thighs gripped him harder.

He didn’t let up, forcing pleasure on her as she started to pant.

“Yeah—that’s the spot,” she whispered, and kneaded his hair roughly. He felt her legs tremble. Her whole body seemed to spasm around his fingers, and he never stopped pleasuring her as she rode out her release.

Her legs fell open when she was spent. He lay down on the bed next to her, amused at the look of transport on her face.

“Dear God, you’re good at that,” she breathed, her eyes closed as her chest slowly stopped heaving.

“Believe me, it was my pleasure.”

“You make me feel like you’re worshiping me.”

“Maybe I am.”

She smiled at him. “Are you?”

“Well, you’re a goddess. That’s what mere mortals do in the presence of a goddess.”

She giggled and poked his chest. “You’re such a weirdo, Harry. I love it. I wanna put you in a box and carry you around.”

He smiled and examined her face. Her pupils were dilated and she seemed to have trouble looking at one spot for long. He had never seen this side of Angelina before. It wasn’t her drunkenness. It was that all her walls were down. She was actually giggling like a firstie. Months of anxiety had disappeared in an instant and he never wanted to see her look any different.

She ran her fingers through his hair and looked into his eyes. “Harry, Harry, Harrykins.”

“Yes, Angiekins?”

“Your eyes are so green.”

“Just noticed, have you?”

“They’re so pretty.”

“And you’re shitfaced.”

“Hell yes, I am. And you’re not. Or are you? You don’t look it.”

“Only a little. I don’t think occlumency and booze are supposed to mix.”

“Fuck occulmancy!” she said with authority. “And fuck me too! Why are you wearing pants?”

“Because you couldn’t quite get them off earlier.”

“That’s a good reason. Let’s go for a broom ride,” she said suddenly.

“What?”

“Lemme get my broom. I wanna go outside.”

He laughed and looked at his watch. “Angelina, it’s two in the morning and raining. It’s freezing cold.”

“Fuck,” she muttered, and glared at his arm. “Fucking watches. I just want to hold a broom.”

“Want me to go fetch one?”

She shook her head and then gave him a goofy grin. “Wanna know a secret about broomsticks?”

“Sure.”

She squinted and poked his chest again. “It’s a girl code thing. I shouldn’t tell you.”

“Well, now I definitely want to know.”

“You have to promise not to breathe a word of it,” she said, gently twisting a nipple.

“I won’t reveal the secrets of your super-secret girls’ club.”

She giggled for a moment before regaining her composure. “You know how you can control the charms on the newer brooms?”

“Yeah.”

She made a gesture he didn’t quite grasp. “Well, if you turn the cushioning charms waaaay down and, you know, let gravity do its thing…”

“What?” he asked, when she didn’t continue.

“It gets you off!” she said, laughing and almost collapsing against his chest. “The twists and turns and, ohhhh, the diving. Diving rubs all the right spots!”

He burst out laughing. “Are you serious?”

“Oh, yeah. Very,” she said, nodding earnestly.

“Oh, my God.”

“Katie missed a pass in practice once because she was about to have an orgasm and couldn’t be bothered.”

“Holy shit.”

She smacked his face playfully. “And if you ever repeat a word of that I’ll castrate you, and I don’t wanna hurt your cock. It’s almost as pretty as your eyes.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t want you to hurt it either. Although it does make me wonder why more girls don’t play quidditch.”

“Because the games would be boring. We’d just hover over the pitch and wriggle. You’d have to keep score by orgasms.”

Harry burst out laughing again, and she did too. He laughed until he was red in the face and she kissed him to get him to shut up.

She caressed his cheek with her hand and stared into his eyes. “Harry fucking Potter,” she mused fondly.

“That’s me.”

“I wanna know something,” she said, resting her head on her elbow.

“What do you want to know?”

“Did you ever have a wank thinking about me?” she asked with a grin. “Or Katie or Alicia? Before all this, I mean.”

He blushed but told her the truth. “All the time.”

“Perv,” she said, giving his nipple another gentle twist.

“Well, have you seen your body? Not that Katie and Alicia aren’t nice to look at, but you…”

“Yeah, yeah, so you’ve said,” she replied, but he could tell she was glowing with pride and amusement.

“Not that that’s the best part of you,” he offered hesitantly.

She smiled and just stared into his eyes. The moment grew almost uncomfortably long. He would give anything to know what she was thinking. She looked away and rested her head on his shoulder.

“I want to learn the patronus charm,” she said out of nowhere. “I bet it would be a harpy. A huge one. Or maybe a griffin.”

He hugged her tightly, wishing that she hadn’t looked away. He wanted to say something, was on the very verge of saying it, but the words didn’t come. He wasn’t even sure what they would be.

“I think we can work something out,” he said.

“Good. Now let’s get you out of your pants. If I pass out in the middle of anything, don’t hold it against me.”

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Things were a little awkward between them the next day, but not overly so. He teased her, but there was an odd quality to it that she couldn’t pin down. He seemed almost wistful. She chalked it up to her drunkenness. She had the vague idea that they had discussed something important, or almost done so, but she couldn’t quite remember what it was. The night had been filled with a general aura of happiness, and she didn’t want to ruin it by dwelling on feelings that it was best not to examine too closely.

Luckily no one commented on the fact that neither had slept in their own bed last night. Harry, thank Merlin, had woken them early and snuck them back to the dorms under his cloak. Her roommates had still been asleep, or there might have been some hasty explaining to do.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

“I want to teach the patronus charm next time,” he said firmly.

Hermione blinked at his tone. “Er, okay. You think everyone is ready?”

“I think so. People have been asking about it, and it’s a good one to know. Not just because of OWLs either. We know the dementors are going to be on his side. I don’t want anyone dying because they don’t know the charm.”

“I’ll leave it in your hands. I still can’t cast it perfectly.”

“You’ll get it. I’ll make sure. I want everyone in the DA to be protected, no matter what comes.”

When she didn’t answer, he looked up to discover her watching him with a quizzical expression.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I agree we should learn it. Do you think maybe I can borrow the map this week? I promise not to lose it. I want to use it for prefect rounds, so I can get some work done without having to walk everywhere.”

“Sure.”

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

A/N: A little light in the darkness. Hope you enjoyed the humor.

I changed my section breaks at the request of a reader. Apparently the dashes and o’s make things complicated for an automatic screen reader. I’ll go back and change the other chapters eventually.

Thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

Quaffles and Broomsticks, Chapter 7

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

April was the cruelest month, they said, but Angelina begged to differ. A week of it had passed, and hers was going swimmingly. Two more offers had arrived—one from the Tutshill Tornadoes and another from Puddlemere United—and she couldn’t keep the smile off her face. A scout for the Harpies would be meeting her in a week’s time in Hogsmeade. The anticipation was killing her.

The DA was finally practicing the patronus charm. She felt in her bones that she could cast it. The overwhelming dread of the past year was dissipating, replaced by hope.

She listened to Harry closely as he explained the spell. It seemed simple enough. That idiot Smith asked whether he could actually cast it, and Harry rolled his eyes and produced a majestic stag that filled the room with silver light.

She gazed at it in wonder. A feeling of palpable joy radiated from it. Was it her imagination, or was it looking at her? She shivered. The spell somehow felt like the undiluted essence of Harry, and Merlin, she wanted to molest him right there in front of everyone.

Their time together had become more than a haze of lust. It had become comfortable. They could lay in each other’s arms and talk. And tease. Her drunken confession had opened a door and he had stepped through it. They understood each other now, well enough that he could mock her endlessly about why she spent so much time on a broom. It had been a mistake to reveal that secret.

She watched him as he went down the line, talking to each person as they attempted to cast the spell. Few could produce more than a silvery mist. Her own first attempts were similar.

An hour later, she had made little progress. The spell seemed to taunt her. There was already an otter, a wolfhound, and a bear circling the room along with Harry’s stag, but something was missing from her effort.

A happy memory, he had said. She had tried and discarded several. The one she kept returning to was the moment she received the Harpies’ letter. That had been a moment of relief and exultation. The letter meant more than a future job. It meant she could stay in the magical world. So why wasn’t it working?

She focused on the memory with all she had, blocking out all noise, and cast. The wispy mist emerged from her wand again, refusing to take a form. She cursed and glared at it.

“What kind of memory are you using?” Harry asked softly from behind her.

“The moment that—”

A house elf popped into the room and babbled incoherently at him. She barely understood it, but one thing was clear. They had been discovered, and needed to leave immediately.

“She’s coming!” Harry yelled to the room. “Umbridge knows. We need to leave. Now!”

The room dissolved into chaos as everyone gathered their things and left at a run.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Harry gritted his teeth, his quill pressing into the parchment so hard it almost bent. He once again cursed Marietta Edgecombe’s name.

The traitorous girl hadn’t just given up the DA. She hadn’t just removed Dumbledore from the castle. She had revealed the existence of the Room.

Umbridge watched it now. She couldn’t find its exact location, but her Inquisitorial Squad patrolled the seventh floor constantly, docking points from anyone who loitered. He suspected he was being followed by house elves too. It felt like he was being watched at all times.

The loss of their private sanctuary was a disaster. He and Angelina couldn’t easily escape together anywhere. He would never forgive Edgecombe for that, even if she begged and groveled on her knees.

Quidditch practice was in full swing again, with the match against Ravenclaw only a couple weeks away. He barely saw her. It was too risky for him to be on the pitch, even after practice ended. With their time in the school monopolized by studying, the DA, and trying to avoid the scrutiny of enemies, he felt hemmed in.

He glanced across the library. She was fifty feet away, studying with Alicia in the arithmancy section. He only had to get up and close the distance. But it felt like an impassable gulf. They had to keep their secret. He could only hope that Alicia would grow tired and leave early, just as Ron had done. Then maybe he could ditch Hermione and they could steal away somewhere, if only for ten minutes.

“I need the map back, Hermione,” he whispered.

“Okay,” she said. “I won’t need it again until Wednesday.”

She slid it across the table to him and he pocketed it. Maybe if they met somewhere after curfew, no one would notice. It was a risk, given the amount of scrutiny he was under, but he was growing desperate. Would she be willing to take the risk too?

He stared at his Potions essay, dreaming of the next stolen moment. The touch of her skin. The softness of it. The taste of her mouth and the warmth between her legs. Her laughter. Nothing to worry about in the entire world except pleasing her.

He sighed and looked up to find Hermione watching him. “What?”

“You haven’t written a word in twenty minutes, Harry. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m just distracted.”

She nodded and went back to her work. He returned to glaring at the offending parchment, wishing a violent death for Snape. The one bright spot of the last couple weeks was his performance during occlumency lessons. He still couldn’t keep the man out of his head, but he could protect his most precious memories. Every time he approached anything remotely related to Angelina, Harry ejected him. Snape seemed to be under the impression that his most important memories involved quidditch.

“So. You and Angelina Johnson, huh?”

Hermione’s casual question pulled him violently out of his reverie. He tried to contain his shock. “What—what are you talking about?”

“I think I know my best friend,” she said, not even looking at him as she read a passage from a book. “You didn’t have to hide it from me.”

His heart pounded as he considered his response. What exactly did she know? And how did she know it? His instinct was to deny everything.

She looked up with a small smile on her face. “I only have one question.”

“What?”

“Are you happy?”

He took a breath, trying to calm himself and think rationally. This was Hermione. If he couldn’t trust her with his secret, he couldn’t trust anyone. He felt his face flush as he looked into her curious eyes.

“Yes.”

“Then I’m happy for you. You need something for yourself.”

“How did you know?”

“I paid attention. You look at her in the Great Hall, and in the DA. You went out to fly one afternoon, and she left with her broom just after you. Then when you loaned me the map, I saw—”

“Okay, I get it. Does anyone else know?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Please don’t say anything, Hermione. Please.”

She blinked at the near desperate plea. “I won’t, Harry. You know you can trust me. But the signs aren’t hard to spot if you know how to look. Try not to watch her so much or someone else will notice.”

He nodded and closed his eyes, feeling as if he had dodged an unforgivable. He couldn’t quite explain why he didn’t want anyone to know about them. It wasn’t that they might think poorly of him for having such an arrangement. It didn’t feel sordid to him at all. It felt precious. Something that belonged to them and no one else.

“Thank you. I’ll try to be more careful,” he said.

“How did it happen?”

“It—it’s personal. We’re not dating. Well, not exactly. We’re…”

What were they doing? Angelina had spoken of it as two quidditch buddies helping each other out. Something casual. But had that ever been true? Even from their first encounter it had felt more serious than that. They weren’t just hooking up. They were lovers. What did that mean?

“You don’t have to explain,” she said softly. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

He smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m more than okay.”

And he meant it. Despite all that was happening with Umbridge, Voldemort, Snape, and the Ministry, Angelina was the one thing going right in his life. Their little moments together pushed everything else aside, like a barrier that no dementor could cross. If only they could find a way to have more of them.

She examined the smile on his face intently. “You are, aren’t you? Merlin, Harry, are you—”

“Don’t finish that sentence.”

She nodded and returned his smile.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

They finally met three days later in an abandoned classroom. It was well after curfew. Harry had discovered from Dobby that Umbridge was indeed spying on him with house elves. It had taken Dobby volunteering to take another elf’s shift to buy them some free time.

They arrived within minutes of each other, her under a shaky disillusionment charm and he under his cloak.

They wasted no time. Locking and silencing charms were tossed haphazardly at the door. They didn’t bother with cushioning charms on the floor.

They wrestled themselves out of their clothes without words, pausing only to breathe as they attacked each other’s mouths.

Their lovemaking was frantic, spurred on by fear of discovery and the need that had steadily grown to an ache over the past two weeks. They both finished quickly, then slowed down to savor every second as they teased each other and prepared for more.

Afterwards she lay across his chest, one leg draped across him. The silence was comfortable and intimate. She didn’t want to break it. She wanted it to linger in the air and let it caress her.

She hadn’t realized how much she needed to be with him until she couldn’t. Even the recent joy over her quidditch offers didn’t dispel her need for his presence. With the twins gone and Umbridge controlling the castle, he felt like an oasis of calm amidst the chaos.

She trailed a hand lazily along his chest. When they first hooked up, she told herself it had just been about stress relief. She needed an outlet and so did he. They found one in each other, and it was as simple as that. But now he felt like an addiction; one that brought joy instead of despair.

He was different than her other friends. Katie was girly and fun. Alicia was quiet and observant. The twins were flippant about anything that didn’t involve their family. But Harry—Harry was…what? She couldn’t find the proper word for him. He had made himself more than an escape. He felt essential.

The thought made her shiver.

She had seen the same need in his eyes, directed at her. It thrilled her that she was responsible for it. She longed to relieve some of his burden, just as hers had been lightened, but she didn’t know how. There was nothing she could do to protect him from his enemies. Especially when she would be leaving Hogwarts soon. Yet another truth that she was afraid to confront.

She watched his chest rise and fall, her hand rising with it. She had only seen him truly at ease when he was with her. Outside he was at war, even in the presence of his best friends. It made her feel oddly proud.

“We never did finish the patronus charm,” she mused.

“Hard to find happy memories when there’s an evil bitch running the school.”

“I’m pretty happy right now.”

“So am I,” he said, and squeezed her.

“I don’t understand why I couldn’t get it to work. I tried again in the dorms but just got mist.”

“What memory are you using?”

“I’ve tried everything. My friends, my mother, my Hogwarts letter, my letter from the Harpies. None of it works.”

“It’s not just about the memory. It’s about the emotion behind it. It has to be powerful. The memory is a short-cut, like a wand motion. The emotion powers the spell.”

“What do you use?”

“I have a few I can call on. But mainly I use one from my third year. It’s the memory of discovering I had a godfather. The feeling of knowing that there was someone out there to—to rescue me from my relatives. Someone who loved me and connected me to my parents and—well, you get the idea.”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Sorry, that was personal.”

“I don’t mind. This is pretty personal, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Next time you try it, think of something like that. Something more hopeful. Whatever drives away your despair.”

She nodded against his chest. The emotion behind his memory was more powerful than hers. Happiness and relief, apparently, weren’t quite enough. Her happiness was vague, something connected to an abstraction. His was viscerally connected to a person. She didn’t think there was a person that produced such an emotion in her. The only person she felt truly connected to at the moment was lying nude right next to her.

She closed her eyes and thought about Harry. About the feeling his presence provoked in her. About the need she had suffered all week before finally satisfying it tonight. About the escape he granted her, and her desire to give him the same escape.

“I want to try it again,” she said, and rose from the ground.

“Now?”

She didn’t answer. She fumbled for her wand and then raised it in the air, closing her eyes. She called to mind the feeling of Harry’s body against hers. The rush of ecstasy when they touched. The comfort and intimacy she felt afterwards. The way he had no expectations of her. The way she glowed under his praise. The way he made her feel like she was better than every pureblood bastard in the school.

Her wand arm trembled. “Expecto Patronum.”

She felt the magic as it poured out of her. She opened her eyes and stared in awe at the creature that leapt from her wand. It was an eagle. Huge and spectral. It soared across the room, glowing and filling it with pure joy.

“My God,” she whispered, tears suddenly brimming in her eyes.

He laughed and stood up next to her. “Holy shit! She’s gorgeous! I knew you could do it.”

The eagle soared, looking for threats, and then finally landed in front of her, as if waiting for orders. She stared at it in reverence. It didn’t disappear, somehow sensing her desire for it to stay.

“What memory did you use?”

“Er, a personal one. Maybe I’ll tell you one day.”

“No problem.”

She took a deep breath as her patronus blinked out of existence. She turned to look at him. His eyebrows rose at the glassy look in her eyes and he didn’t have time to ask before she pounced on him and they fell to the ground in a tangle.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Dobby ran interference for them twice again that week. Harry almost asked Hermione to watch the map for them, but that was too awkward. She would have been staring at their overlapping feet, knowing exactly what they were doing.

They used a different room each time, only for an hour, hoping to avoid the watchful eyes that now followed him everywhere.

He dreamed constantly of those stolen hours as the world outside descended into bedlam. The castle was now in open revolt against Umbridge’s rule. Whenever he could escape, he watched Angelina on the map, realizing that he was pining after her. She had told him not to—that it was against the rules. He couldn’t help himself.

Alicia had given her a gift this week, an illustrated history of the Holyhead Harpies. It was a graduation gift, he surmised.

It filled him with a sense of dread. The end of the year was approaching, and with it, Angelina would be gone. Just five weeks. One last quidditch match, a flurry of preparations for NEWTs, and that would be that. He couldn’t ignore the pang in his chest. He could no longer imagine spending the next two years at Hogwarts without her.

He couldn’t put into words, even to himself, what he wanted to say to her. He knew he would lose his composure if he broached the subject. She might break things off immediately, afraid that he was getting too close.

He needed something that expressed how he felt without words. Something that wouldn’t scare her away, but would let her have a glimpse of what he was feeling, and give her a chance to respond.

Some sort of gift was the only thing he could think of, but what? A watch? A book? Quidditch gear? Nothing felt right. It was too impersonal.

He wanted something that would cause her to remember him every time she saw it. Something that said how proud of her he was, how happy that her dreams were coming true—how much he had come to need her.

What kind of gift could say all that?

He worried over the question for several days. Was there some sort of wizarding tradition he was unaware of? He didn’t feel comfortable consulting Hermione. She was already too curious about Angelina. He would have to ask Sirius, he decided. Wasn’t this what godfathers were for?

But Umbridge was monitoring the floos and searching mail. Hedwig had already been attacked. How could—Harry breathed in sharply, suddenly remembering Sirius’ gift at the beginning of the year. He blinked in surprise for a moment, then ran for his dorm.

A few minutes later, he was staring into his godfather’s face and wondering how he could have been so thick.

“Hey, kid. I didn’t think you were ever going to use this thing.”

“Er, yeah, I’m sorry. I kind of forgot about it.”

Sirius laughed. “It’s alright. I wondered why you kept flooing me. What’s on your mind?”

“I need some advice. I need to get someone a gift.”

“What kind of gift?”

“It’s for a girl, and I don’t know what would be right for the occasion, and—I don’t know,” he said helplessly.

Sirius wiped away a fake tear. “Asking his godfather for advice about girls. You make an old dog proud, Harry.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“So is this a girlfriend or someone you want to be a girlfriend or what?”

“She’s…” 

He laughed. “Ah, one of those then.”

“I don’t even want to know what you’re thinking. She’s not my girlfriend. Not exactly. We’ve been seeing each other in secret for months, and…”

“And what?”

It came pouring out of him in a rush. “And now she’s leaving. She just has to finish her NEWTs. She got a tryout with the Harpies, and she’s going to be a pro quidditch player. And I’ll be stuck here, and I don’t want her to go. I need to get her something that says that, and says congratulations for everything, but isn’t something stupid like chocolates so—what do I do?”

“Merlin, Harry, slow down.”

“Sorry. I’m just—is there something that says all that? Something traditional maybe?”

“Not really. Not between a boy and a girl, unless you’re planning to put a ring on her finger. Should I be worried about that?”

“Er, no.”

“Good. If you just want to say congratulations, buy her something quidditch-related—a broom polishing-kit or new pads or something. I take it you want it to be more personal than that?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t go wrong with a necklace or a bracelet. Keep it simple. Something small she can wear whenever she wants. No bloody rings. Never buy a girl ring unless you want to marry her, and maybe not even then. If you want to make it unique, there’s a place in Hogsmeade that designs stuff like that.”

Harry nodded. Suddenly he knew exactly what he wanted to give her.

“Thank you, Sirius.”

“No problem. Let me know if you need some galleons, and don’t forget about the mirror again.”

“I won’t.”

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

A/N: There you go. Two chapters to go. I hope you’re enjoying it.

I was surprised at how many of you thought Hermione was going to flip out and do something drastic, like forbid the relationship, tell everyone they’re together, or even rat them out to McGonagall. Seriously? She sets Professors on fire for Harry.


	8. Chapter 8

Quaffles and Broomsticks, Chapter 8

“And Angelina Johnson scores!” roared Lee Jordan. “90 to 20 Gryffindor.”

Harry smiled as Angelina soared by the stands, pumping her fist in salute to the cheering students. Gryffindor was going wild. Even Hermione was on her feet screaming.

“We’re playing really well today, aren’t we?” she said excitedly.

“Yes, we are.”

Angelina had turned them into a well-oiled machine for the final match of the season. Ginny marked Cho Chang closely, cutting her off and not giving her the freedom to range. The new beaters, Sloper and Kirke, were actually doing their jobs, allowing the chasers to decimate the Ravenclaw line.

Ron had found the confidence he needed too. Every time he stopped a goal, the Gryffindors sang their version of ‘Weasley Is Our King,’ and he pretended to conduct them.

“I’m sorry you can’t be out there.”

“Not your fault.”

She leaned over to whisper in his ear. “At least you get to watch her.”

“Shush.”

She smirked. “You are smitten, Harry Potter. Don’t deny it.”

“I am not—smitten,” he said under his breath, “and don’t say another word.”

Hermione giggled, a sound he had never heard her make. He shook his head. Because he _was_ smitten, or worse. And he knew it. The little box in his robes was testament to that.

He had been carrying it with him for a week now, seeking the right moment to give it to her. Two weeks ago, he had snuck out of the castle under his cloak, Dobby covering his tracks. He found the proper store in Hogsmeade without too much hassle. The woman who greeted him was probably older than Dumbledore, and didn’t seem to recognize him. He had been prepared to beg for her discretion, but it proved unnecessary.

It had taken only a few minutes to explain what he wanted, and for her to show him the various options. He paid extra for it to be ready within a week. Now it rested in his pocket, and it felt like a heavy weight.

“And Johnson scores again!” Lee yelled into the microphone. “Gryffindor leads by a hundred! Merlin, they are putting on a show today.”

Harry’s eyes shined with satisfaction as he watched her zoom around the pitch. He could see her smiling even from this distance. Hermione kept taking annoying little peeks at him. He tried to ignore her grin.

Angelina deserved this moment so much. He glanced up at the VIP section that contained Professors and at least half a dozen pro scouts. They were there for one reason. Why they hadn’t been watching her all along, he didn’t know. But now it was clear to everyone that she was special.

She scored again. The crowd roared. Harry roared with them, but it didn’t quell the dull ache that was growing in his chest. This was her last game at Hogwarts. Her next would be in a professional uniform, and he wouldn’t be there. The thought was almost physically painful.

He couldn’t find the will to tell her how much he already missed her. He prayed the little box in his pocket would say everything he couldn’t.

Every time he looked at it, he felt anguish. At first, it had seemed like a symbol of hope. An invitation. A way to express not just what she meant to him, but what she could still mean after she was gone.

But the more he held it up to the light and watched it sparkle, the tinier and more fragile it seemed. More like a goodbye than an invitation. He could they possibly remain close if she weren’t at Hogwarts? They weren’t even properly together now.

No matter how often his mind wrestled with the problem, he couldn’t find a solution. It might be cruel to both of them to pursue anything more. Especially for her. She didn’t deserve to carry his burdens any further than the castle gates. Not when she had such a bright future waiting. He would only complicate it.

And yet he couldn’t bear the thought of saying those words to her.

It took another half hour for the game to end. Ginny caught the snitch from underneath Cho’s nose, finally putting Ravenclaw out of their misery. It was a blow out, the biggest victory they had ever had.

The students poured out of the stands and onto the pitch in jubilation. Umbridge tried and failed to stop them. Ron was hoisted on shoulders, as was Ginny, and everyone chanted ‘Weasley Is Our King’ at a volume that could be heard in Hogsmeade. He hugged Angelina fiercely when he reached her, hoping his whispered ‘congratulations’ somehow stood out from the others.

Her face was shining with sweat and happiness. Her shoulders no longer bore the weight they had carried all year. Part of him was jealous. Not at her victory or her joy, but that he couldn’t fully share this moment with her.

The flash of a picture briefly blinded him. The Gryffindor players gathered around each other, and there were more flashes. He had never felt like such an outsider looking in.

His heart seized as he realized he didn’t even own a picture of her, let alone the two of them together. The thought was piercing.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

She stood under the showerhead and let the hot water cascade down her body. Everyone else had departed the locker room long ago. The party in the tower had probably already begun.

It seemed as if half the magical world had wanted to talk to her after the match. Half-a-dozen scouts took turns pitching her on the merits of their teams, pausing only to compliment her performance. She had smiled and listened, wondering why the hell they hadn’t contacted her six months ago.

She was in the boys’ showers rather than the girls’. She had walked in here unconsciously, laughed, and decided to stay. No one was around to catch her. No one was around to join her either.

She looked at the slick, tiled floor. The roar of the water conjured images from what suddenly seemed like another life. She could almost feel its hardness as the weight of his body pressed against hers. If she closed her eyes, she could feel the caress of his fingers on her skin.

Today had been both an ending and a beginning. Her quidditch days here were finished. She couldn’t have asked for a better final match. It had been perfect. Soon Hogwarts itself would be a memory. No more parchments or books or potions. Just the freedom to fly.

She should be happy. She _was_ happy. And yet here she was, by herself in the boys’ showers, trying to ignore a growing sense of desolation.

If only she were coming back next year. Or he were two years older. And not The-Boy-Who-Lived. Then things would be so much simpler.

They would have to talk soon. But she didn’t know if she could endure it. She didn’t know what to say, just as she hadn’t known what to say after the shock of their first time together. She only knew it would probably hurt like hell.

How could this end in anything but heartache for the both of them?

He had sustained her through the darkest time of her life, even if he wasn’t aware of it. What started off as a game had turned into something she never wanted to end. Today, when he hugged her on the pitch, she had almost kissed the life out of him, right there in front of all the cameras. It had been instinctive. As if they were a couple.

She tried to push the ache of her reflections away. It was best to put things off as long as possible. That way they could enjoy the last moments of the year together. They both deserved that much.

The steam rose around her, almost filling the room. She willed it to provide her some clarity. The more she stared at it, the more it seemed like the ethereal form of her patronus was staring back at her. She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to meet its gaze.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Her eyes scanned the party. She had decided not to drink for this one. It was her last triumph at Hogwarts, and she wanted to remember it.

The Weasleys were in fine form, even without the presence of the twins. Ron clearly reveled in the attention, perhaps a bit too much. A constant flow of drinks was pressed into the hands of the players, but she passed them along to others. She had never been slapped on the back so many times. It was growing annoying.

Her eyes met his across the room and he smiled in a way that couldn’t be misinterpreted.

They met twenty minutes later in the Room of Requirement. Dobby had distracted the elf who was watching the corridor and they snuck in.

“You’re a badass,” he said with a grin.

Her heart swelled with his praise. “Well, no shit. You just now figured that out?”

He laughed. “You scored 140 points by yourself. That’s got to be some kind of record.”

“Couldn’t resist showing off a little.”

“I think the scouts got the message.”

She pulled him into a kiss that lasted until both were panting for breath. Her hands pawed at his robes, wanting them to go away. He stopped her.

“I’ve got something for you.”

“I know you do. I’ve been needing it all week.”

He laughed. “Not that. Although you’re going to get that too. I mean this.”

He pulled a little rectangular box from within his robes, and her breath caught. Surely he couldn’t mean to—no. Definitely not. Nevertheless, she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking as she accepted it.

“I know Alicia got you something. I wanted to get you something too.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Yes, I did. I want you to remember.”

Remember. The word felt like a punch in the gut. She opened the little box with trepidation. It was stuffed with paper. It parted to reveal a thin golden bracelet, so thin that it was barely visible. She held it up to the light, and noticed the four tiny charms attached to it.

It was adorned by a stag, an eagle, a quaffle, and a broomstick. Little effigies so small they were barely distinguishable from the bracelet.

“Merlin,” she whispered, her eyes watering instantly.

“I know it’s thin, but it’s enchanted for strength. Do you like it?”

“I love it,” she said, and slipped it over her wrist. It immediately resized itself, hugging her skin.

“If you don’t, you can get it replaced with—”

“Shut up, Harry,” she said, and pulled him into another searing kiss.

They lost themselves in it for whole minutes. It went from lusty to so soft and gentle that her knees felt like they might give way. She finally pulled away and rested her forehead on his.

“Eagle and stag, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said softly.

So he felt the same thing she was feeling. Fuck. It would be so much easier if he weren’t. Or maybe that would have made it even harder. She looked deep in his eyes, and saw her reflection mirrored there. She didn’t dare speak the words that threatened to spill out, lest it ruin everything. A profound ache built in her chest and tears welled in her eyes again.

“Harry…”

“I know,” he said, and his smile was so sad and so happy at the same time that she couldn’t stand it.

She felt the tear roll down her face. He wiped it away with his thumb.

“I just wanted something that said—that said—congratulations, I guess,” he said thickly. “For everything. And to say thank you, for how much—and that I…”

He trailed off, unable to find the words, and her heart skipped a beat. Please don’t say them. Please. Not yet.

And yet she wanted him to say them. To upend everything.

“Come here,” she whispered, and pulled him to the bed, hoping to convey with her body everything she didn’t know how to say, even if she found the courage.

They made love slowly and deliberately, so slowly that it was almost mournful. She wrapped her body around his, needing to feel every part of him touch her in a never-ending embrace.

They lay together afterwards in silence, enveloped in an intimacy that felt wrong to pierce with words. She intertwined her fingers with his, a tender gesture she had never done with anyone. She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it, and for the first time noticed the marks on his flesh.

“What’s this?”

“What?”

_“I must not tell lies?!_ What the fuck, Harry? What is this?”

“Umbridge,” he said bitterly.

“That _bitch_. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What were you going to do? Some things can’t be helped.”

“Oh, Merlin.”

She squeezed their hands together tighter and kissed the scar, willing it to go away. But it wasn’t raw or red. It was already an old wound, too deep to heal.

“I’ll kill her,” she said.

“Not if I get there first.”

She closed her eyes and rested her head on his chest. She had almost forgotten the horrors of this year in the joy of the last month. She had escaped her jail, but Harry remained in his.

She listened to his heart beat, felt the rise and fall of his chest, and tried to think of the words that would not come. How was it that she couldn’t bear to leave Hogwarts now, even as she was elated to escape it?

And soon—

She didn’t finish the thought. She couldn’t look him in the eye right now, or she would cry. She’d never felt so weak in her life, and she hated weakness.

She held up her wrist and examined her new bracelet. It glittered against her dark skin, subtly reflecting the light of the room.

“I’ll never take it off,” she said, and hoped that he understood her meaning.

She felt him sigh, but he didn’t speak for a long moment.

“We need a picture,” he finally said.

“What?”

“We don’t have one. Of us.”

“Oh. Yes, we do.”

She winced when she envisioned a photo of them together, smiling and laughing. But would they be smiling? She imagined looking at it months from now. Would she feel joy or sorrow?

She sniffled and couldn’t hold back a tear, even though Angelina Johnson didn’t cry. They wouldn’t have a moment like this next year. Only a handful remained. There were only a few weeks left of school, and they would pass in a frenzy of revision. NEWTs for her. OWLs for him.

Maybe if she pretended to be busy or oblivious, he would pretend too. Maybe they wouldn’t have to talk about it. Maybe it could be postponed forever. Something deep within her ached and threatened to burst free. She stubbornly pushed it away.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Harry’s next two weeks passed in a daze. There was little time for him to see Angelina, not with so much work to be done. The stress of revision was grueling, and she couldn’t avoid it either. Still they found time to steal away. Their time together grew more frenzied, more lustful, more desperate.

He still couldn’t find the courage to say what needed to be said. He feared what she would say in return. She had the power to undo him. He had given her that power without realizing it. Did she know that?

Her feelings seemed to mirror his. Though she didn’t speak them aloud, he knew how to read her now. The last time they were together, she had worshiped his body more thoroughly than he’d ever worshiped hers. He had no doubt whatsoever that she didn’t want their holiday to end.

But did that even matter? He hadn’t found a way forward that was fair to her. The age difference was nothing. But could the magic they had created together survive her absence? Could owls and floo calls substitute for lying naked in her arms? Talking and laughing together on the pitch? Defying the whole castle together?

Even if they could make it work, she couldn’t share his affections without also sharing his burdens. Their secret would get out. She would no longer be free. She would suddenly find herself very interesting to people who wouldn’t hesitate to torture her to death. Or to use her against him.

He couldn’t bring himself to be that selfish. And yet he couldn’t bear to let her go.

He could scarcely concentrate on studying, but he forced himself. His sleep suffered badly. He tossed and turned, and the visions of the long, dark hallway returned with a vengeance. Hermione shot him worried looks during the day, but didn’t question him. He was grateful for that, at least.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

His first OWL examinations went well, even if he could barely concentrate. Angelina’s absence loomed larger than any test. By the History of Magic exam, he was exhausted. He closed his eyes only for a moment, hoping to gather his thoughts and stop the words from swimming on the page.

He somehow fell asleep. Only briefly, but it was enough. A vision assaulted him, one with implications too terrible to contemplate. He jerked awake and shouted in panic. The entire class turned to stare at him. The confused examiner rose to his feet and Harry leapt to his. He sprinted out of the room, heedless of the exam and the astonished looks that followed him.

He reached his dorm room in minutes, panting and desperate. He threw open his trunk and grabbed for his mirror.

“Sirius! Sirius! Sirius Black!”

An agonizing twenty seconds followed. The silence was deafening. Harry threw the mirror onto his bed and grabbed his invisibility cloak when the mirror finally buzzed.

“Harry?”

He gasped and fumbled for it. A puzzled Sirius stared back at him. “That you, kid? Kreacher was throwing a wobbly about something. What’s up?”

“Oh, thank God.”

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

She rushed towards the Hospital Wing, dread threatening to overwhelm her. She had tried to gain entry three hours ago, going so far as to interrogate Madam Pomfrey. The witch had sternly turned her away, refusing even to confirm that Harry was there.

A familiar house elf had just popped into her room. Now she was sprinting through the hallways.

She hadn’t heard the story until the evening meal. She had been holed up in the library all afternoon, cramming information for her final NEWT, unaware of the chaos unfolding in the History of Magic OWL. They said Harry had experienced some sort of breakdown. That he’d rushed out of the room in a hysterical state, with Ron and Hermione not far behind. No one had seen any of them since. There were rumors that he was in the Hospital Wing, or at St. Mungo’s, or even in the morgue, and she’d been heartsick with worry ever since.

She threw open the doors to the Hospital Wing without knocking, ignoring Madam Pomfrey’s objections. She rushed behind a screen at the back of the room. What she found there left her blinking in confusion.

Harry was leaning against a bed with a huge smile on his face, looking happy, if not downright ecstatic.

Ron and Hermione sat on the edge of another bed and seemed to be in equally good spirits.

“What happened? What’s going on?” she asked hurriedly. “They said you went crazy during your OWLs and you lot have been missing for hours.”

Hermione stood and pulled Ron away, clearly wanting to give them some privacy. “We’ll see you in the common room, Harry,” she said.

“Okay,” he called after them. 

He didn’t answer her at first. He just smiled and pulled her into a tight embrace.

“Harry?” she asked, now more confused than alarmed.

He released her and looked into her eyes, an almost gleeful expression on his face.

“We set a trap,” he said. “Voldemort tried to lay a trap for me, to lure me to the Ministry, but we turned it around on him.”

“What?” she asked, failing to understand any part of those statements.

“You can’t tell anyone about this, okay? No one. Only some of it will be in the papers tomorrow.”

“I won’t, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She had expected to find him injured, sick, or worse—not euphoric.

“They know he’s back now,” he carried on, grinning madly. “The whole world will know soon. Dumbledore dueled Voldemort right in the Ministry atrium, and forced him to flee. They captured a bunch of Death Eaters, and three of them are dead.”

“What?!”

“I can’t wait to tell Neville. Both of the Lestrange brothers are dead. So is some guy named Dolohov. Sirius said Moody nearly sliced him in half. Only Bellatrix Lestrange escaped with Voldemort, and she was injured so badly she might be dead now too. They captured Lucius Malfoy and a bunch of others.”

She tried to process the flood of information. She didn’t know who ‘they’ were, or what Harry meant by a trap, but it was clear that the Death Eaters just got routed. “Holy shit. So—this is great news, right? Why are you hiding out in here?”

“It was part of the ruse. It had to seem like I wasn’t even in Hogwarts, and Pomfrey had to keep watch over me, because my scar—well, I’ll explain later. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. We had to wait for everything to happen. But Dumbledore is already back in his office and he fired Umbridge the moment he set foot in it. That bitch is already gone.”

She stared at him in shock. “Oh, my God!”

“Oh, and he removed by quidditch ban, not that it matters at this point.”

She pulled him into a hug and couldn’t resist laughing. “I don’t understand what the hell is happening, but congratulations!”

‘And thank fucking Merlin you’re alright,’ she added to herself, but didn’t say it aloud. A small part of her blossomed with hope. Did this mean that the threat from the Death Eaters had been crushed? That her own place in the world was suddenly more secure? That Harry’s was?

She couldn’t decide whether to interrogate him further or rip off his robes right there in front of Madam Pomfrey and who else might be loitering in her office. She settled for pulling him further behind the screen and kissing him feverishly.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

A/N: One to go. Thanks for reading. 


	9. Chapter 9

_Quaffles and Broomsticks_ , Chapter 9

The next day, a lone figure sat high above the quidditch pitch, suspended in mid-air on a broom he hadn’t felt between his legs in eight months. Given the events of the previous day—a disaster averted, a trap sprung, the tables turned—Harry Potter should have felt triumphant and relieved. Everyone would soon know that he had been telling the truth.

But he felt neither triumph nor relief. His exultation had ended soon after he stepped into Dumbledore’s office late last night.

‘Either must die at the hand of the other.’ The words of a drunken fraud. But a Dark Lord had taken them seriously and made them real. They were the cause of every misery he had endured in his short life. The loss of his parents. The unwanted fame. The constant deadly threats to him and his friends. Now he knew the reason why, but it offered little consolation.

He understood why Dumbledore had kept the prophecy from him. He would not have wanted the burden as an 11-year-old. Even so, his timing felt cruel. Just as the first glimmer of hope appeared on the horizon, the old man had ruthlessly crushed it with a truth that couldn’t be escaped.

He was destined to kill or be killed. To be hounded relentlessly in a war that was only beginning, and whose outcome was uncertain. And the odds were stacked mightily against him.

A Hogwarts student vs. Voldemort. What a joke.

A sense of fatalism had gripped him soon after he left Dumbledore’s office. Part of him wanted to rage at life itself. Another part, the deepest part, was resigned, as if he had known the Headmaster’s revelation all along. That he would never be allowed to have a normal life. Would never be able to claim the simple joys that other people took for granted.

The brief moments of contentment that he had stolen with Angelina now seemed like evidence of Fate’s boundless cruelty. A sick practical joke. He had only just begun entertaining the possibility that their time together wasn’t merely an escape from reality—that it might be more real than anything else—when that hope was extinguished.

He knew what he had to do now.

This horrible new knowledge would give him the resolve to say what needed to be said. He couldn’t allow her to be pulled further into his orbit. Everyone who called him a friend would soon be courting death. His heart skipped two beats, as if in protest of his dark thoughts, and he ruthlessly pushed aside the grief that threatened to choke him.

He would have to settle for watching her from afar. Watching her chase the kinds of dreams that were now permanently unavailable to him. His destiny would be colder and lonelier, but he wouldn’t shirk his duty.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Angelina paced nervously around the Room of Requirement. She had unconsciously conjured the same room they used for their trysts, even if that was the last thing on her mind. Harry was on his way. She had requested this meeting because it was finally time to have the talk.

She had barely seen him the past two days. It was as if he were avoiding her now that they had the freedom to meet. She’d only had short glimpses of him, and what she had seen was alarming. His eyes looked empty. Despondent. She didn’t understand, and wasn’t certain she had the courage to look into those eyes and speak.

OWLs and NEWTs were finished. There were only two days before she would leave on the Hogwarts Express for the final time. The mood in the castle was a strange combination of shock, fear, and celebration. Celebration that the year had ended and that Umbridge was finally gone. Shock and fear at the headlines that were splayed across The Daily Prophet. Voldemort was indeed back, just as Dumbledore and Harry had claimed all along. The students seemed lost in confusion.

She couldn’t care less about any of that. There was only one thing on her mind: what to do about Harry.

They had created something special together. There was no denying it. She never wanted it to end. But how could that magic endure when they could no longer see each other? She would be far away, focused on quidditch, and he would be here, accompanied by his friends and going to classes. Surrounded by other girls. Still besieged by the followers of a Dark Lord.

She imagined what it would be like if they tried to continue. There would be letters. They would be full of longing at first, even though they spoke more fluently with their bodies than with words. She would tell him what happened at practice. He would tell her the latest news from Hogwarts. Both would eventually become distracted by other things. The letters would become merely polite, or worse, full of desperate ‘I-Miss-You’s’ and sappy endearments.

Their time together would slowly become a distant memory.

She wasn’t even part of his inner circle. Not when it came to whatever was happening with Voldemort. Her confusion in the Hospital Wing had driven that fact home. And if he wanted her to be, how could she become so if they couldn’t even see each other?

The obstacles seemed overwhelming. Maybe a brutal severance would be best. One swift stroke to cut through this painful gordian knot. Maybe he would accept that. Maybe he expected it.

But the thought of doing that made her nauseous. She hadn’t forgotten how it felt in the long hours waiting for those cursed hospital doors to open. His well-being had become almost as important to her as her own.

Fucking Merlin, what was she supposed to do? She could only hope he would give her some hint, some opening, that would make everything clear. It felt like she was back in the locker room, preparing to let him down easy after their first time together.

She stopped pacing as the door opened and the subject of her worries stepped inside.

“Hey, Angelina,” he said, and she couldn’t mistake the misery in his voice.

“Harry,” she said, with her best effort at a smile. “Thanks for coming. You’ve been a stranger the last few days.”

“I’ve been busy with things, I guess.”

A long silence followed. It hung in the air oppressively.

“I suppose we need to talk,” she said.

“Yeah.”

He moved to a small table near the bed where they had so often escaped the world. He sank into a chair and closed his eyes. She stood across from him, her stomach churning.

“Thank you,” he said, before she could speak. “For everything that happened this year. For everything you did for me. I don’t think I would have made it without you.”

She swallowed thickly. It seemed he had already decided how this was going to go. “I should be thanking you. I would have gone batshit crazy without you.”

He nodded but didn’t open his eyes, as if he couldn’t stand to look at her. She found it far more painful than she was expecting. When he finally opened them, she was shocked at the look of desolation she found there.

“I wish you weren’t leaving,” he said weakly.

“Me too. I’ll miss this.”

The words sounded automatic to her ears, as if they were both reading from a script, but she didn’t know what else to say.

“It—it’s best if you never tell anyone about this year,” he said. “About me. It won’t be safe for us to—to even stay in touch. It will just get you killed.”

The words felt like a blow. He wanted to sever all ties, just like that? She sat down in the seat across from him, suddenly feeling weak. She had contemplated what it would be like to say such words for the last two days, but to hear them directed at her so bluntly left her reeling.

“Why?”

“I can’t really say. There’s something I have to do alone.”

The certainty of his dismissal made her want to throttle him. How could he—she _knew_ what he was feeling. What gave him the strength to ignore that so completely? Her throat closed and she found it difficult to speak.

“That’s all I get then? You won’t even tell me why it has to be like this?”

He closed his eyes and spoke, his voice sounding as choked as hers. “You have no idea how much this hurts. I’m sorry.”

Rage and pain roiled within her. Fucking _sorry_?! That’s it? Not even a discussion? An argument? An attempt at consolation?

“I deserve to know,” she said, trying to control her temper. “I thought—two days ago, you were in the best mood I’ve ever seen, and now—what changed?”

His eyes remained stubbornly closed. “I found something out. I can’t talk about it.”

“Fuck you, Harry.”

He finally opened them, and she hated how empty they looked.

“It’ll come down to me and him in the end,” he said softly. “Either I kill him or he kills me. There’s a prophecy. You can’t tell anyone.”

She stared at him in confusion. His meaning slowly dawned on her, and her heart almost stopped beating. “You and _Voldemort_?”

“Yes.”

“You—you can’t be serious. It’s not your job to kill that monster!”

He smiled sadly. “It is. And in the end, it’ll be mine alone. I want you far away from it. I want you to forget about—all this, about me, and move on. Make your dreams come true. I’ll be rooting for you, always, even if I’m not there.”

All at once her resolve crumbled. She had come here expecting some sort of end to things. She had even expected to be the one forced to do the ending, as if that would make things easier for him. But when he directed the same words at her—it was more than she could bear.

The _unfairness_ of it all broke through her pain and she latched onto the one emotion that felt like an anchor. Anger.

Her eyes filled with unshed tears as she looked at him, and her anger gave her clarity. She didn’t _want_ her time with Harry to end. Not like this. And so she wouldn’t let it end.

“What _bullshit_ ,” she said fiercely.

He blinked at her tone.

“You’re just going to dismiss me from your life?”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“Damn right you don’t, because you don’t get a say in my choices. There are two of us here.”

She breathed heavily and glared at him. Her temper threatened to get away from her as a year’s worth of humiliations and defeats—of emotions suppressed and ignored—erupted within her. She wasn’t particularly good with words. She knew that. But she also knew that the kind of severance they had both been imagining was simply _wrong_. How was it possible that she had even been considering it before he arrived?

She stood and paced around the room, struggling to gain control of her emotions.

“Angelina?”

“What do I mean to you?” she said bluntly, the most direct of questions spilling out of her.

His eyes widened. He opened his mouth to answer, then closed it.

“Nothing?” she asked, hoping to provoke his outrage. “Just an easy shag in the showers?”

“No! You mean _everything_!” he said, and the fire in his eyes relieved her. Not just because of his words, but because she couldn’t stand to see the despondent, gloomy version of Harry Potter in front of her.

“Alright, then. Tell me this. If there were no Voldemort and no prophecy—which, by the way, sounds like total fucking bullshit—if none of that existed, would you still want to push me away?”

She realized belatedly that she was addressing the question not just to Harry, but to herself.

“No,” he said firmly.

“Neither would I. I—”

“It would still be unfair to you,” he said, cutting her off. “You’re two years older. You’re leaving Hogwarts. You’re going to be a pro quidditch player, and you’ll meet someone your own age. Or older. I’d still be here, and things would change. You know they would.”

She sank into the chair again and closed her eyes, her anger abruptly leaving her.

“I came here to say the same thing, and now I can’t. I told myself it would be unfair to you. You should be snogging some girl in a broom closet, not thinking about me and missing out on everything else at Hogwarts.”

“I don’t want to snog some other girl, but it doesn’t matter,” he responded morosely. “There’s a bloody war, and I’ll be right in the middle of it. Till the very end.”

She opened her eyes and examined his face, her anger building again at his attitude. “You’re expecting to die, aren’t you?”

“I’d be stupid to expect anything else.”

“You’d be _stupid_ to walk up to Voldemort and challenge him to a duel. Are you planning to do that?”

“No, but—”

“But nothing, Harry Potter. I live in this world too. I just now found my place in it. It’s fucking _mine_. You think I’m going to run and hide and hope the good guys win? You think that little of me?”

He stared at her for a long moment, only now realizing she was angrier with him than she was with the situation.

She stood and paced the room again, stopping only to glare at him. “You are infuriating. You know that, right? So fucking noble I want to punch you.”

“Hermione says the same thing.”

“She’s bloody right. Listen to me. You don’t get to decide what I do, and I’m not going to let you walk out of here with a death wish. Not when—not when—”

She yanked back hard on the words, lest they escape. She took a deep breath to calm herself. “You’re the reason I can cast a patronus, okay?”

“What?”

“I cast my patronus thinking of you. That’s how you make me feel. Are you going to take that away from me? You’re not allowed to be a fucking martyr. If you die on me, I will raise you from the dead just to use you as target practice in the hoops!”

He swallowed thickly and looked away, blinking back tears. He found the courage to stand and embrace her. She leaned against his shoulder, not certain what to say after her confession. The silence lingered. He didn’t seem to know what to say either. Despite her anger, she couldn’t stop herself from sniffling against his robes.

“Dammit, you made me cry. I hate crying girls.”

He held her tightly, and she hugged him back hard enough that he could barely breathe.

“I get the message,” he said. “I’m not giving up. I always fight. You know I do.”

“Then stop pretending you’re about to die!” she said hotly, tears welling in her eyes again. She took a moment to compose herself and pulled away.

“This is your Captain speaking, Harry. It takes more than a seeker to win, no matter how special you think you are. So get your head in the fucking game. That’s an order. You hear me?”

He couldn’t help but smile. “I hear you.”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. Neither do you. Maybe some miracle will make all of this go away. But whatever happens, you don’t get to act like there’s a dementor hovering over you, and you don’t get to tell me to go hide in a hole and forget about you. Nothing ends today. Nothing. Got it?”

He hesitated for a long moment, words of protest rising and dying in his throat, but finally agreed. “Got it.”

“Good.”

She pulled him closer by his robes. He leaned down to kiss her and she returned it aggressively. He tasted like relief and resolution, not sorrow, and something deep in her stomach unclenched.

He broke their kiss and rested his forehead on hers, looking directly into her eyes. “It’ll be hard,” he whispered.

“So is the floor in the showers. Never stopped us before.”

He gave her a real smile for the first time since he had entered the room. “No, it didn’t.”

The unguarded admiration in his eyes made her heart ache. Fuck prophecies. He was still her seeker, and would remain so until she decided otherwise.

She nodded decisively. “Well, there you go. Let’s put that fucker six feet under, and maybe we can be together for real.”

His smile grew and he leaned in to nuzzle her neck. “Maybe.”

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Harry closed his eyes and tried to relax. The hum of the train was comforting, but it couldn’t lull him to sleep. Especially when Ron and Hermione were arguing about her cat again. Some things never changed.

His mind replayed the events of the last week. The agony of trying to let go of Angelina. The exhaustion of OWLs. The trap he had nearly fallen into, followed by a stunning victory, followed by an even more stunning revelation. It was a violent concoction, and he needed time to digest it all.

Angelina was right though. He had been sitting on his broom in the freezing cold again, refusing her warming charms. She hadn’t let him get away with it this time, no matter his misgivings.

Her attitude gave him the first glimpse of hope since he had heard the prophecy. Maybe the sheer obstinance that had kept him alive so far would be enough. He was still reluctant to tell her everything—to bring her directly into the center of the storm. It would put her in so much danger.

But she didn’t have to be at the center of things. That’s not what he needed from her. She was something to fight for. Not an abstraction, like duty or honor, but a living, breathing person that had become his in ways that even Ron and Hermione weren’t.

His hand unconsciously brushed the breast pocket beneath his robes. There was a picture there. Colin had taken it for them and promised to never tell a soul. They were embracing intimately in it, both smiling—not quite happily, but with determination. He knew he would be looking at it every day this summer.

Maybe they could find a way to make it work. To find brief, stolen moments outside of Hogwarts. It would be difficult, and it would have to remain a secret. He didn’t want the Order to know about her. Not so long as Snape was in it. Maybe Sirius could make them another pair of mirrors. Or maybe he could sneak away this summer under Polyjuice. He might even be able to watch her tryouts without putting a target on her back.

He grew angrier as he contemplated the possibilities. At the danger for her. At the need for subterfuge. At himself, for being so willing to give up his own chance at happiness. At Dumbledore. At Voldemort. At the entire magical world, for asking so much and giving so little in return.

The compartment door suddenly slammed open, and he looked up. Malfoy and his goons stood in the doorway and sneered at them.

“How charming. A mudblood, a half-blood, and a blood traitor all in one place. It’s like the start of a bad joke.”

“Fuck off, Malfoy,” Ron said threateningly.

Malfoy ignored him and focused on Harry. “Enjoy this while you can, Potter. When my father is free—”

“What?” he interrupted. “You’ll ask him to wipe your sorry ass again?”

Malfoy’s hand inched toward his wand. Harry leapt from the seat and drew his in one smooth motion. It was pressed into the blonde boy’s throat a moment later. His eyes widened as Harry glared at him.

“You get one warning, little Draco. No more games. You mess with me or my friends, I’ll bury you, just like your father’s dead comrades. Think hard this summer. If you’ve got a tattoo on your arm the next time I see you, I’ll cut the whole bloody thing off. Get out.”

Malfoy cautiously backed out of the compartment, looking between his eyes and the glowing tip of his wand. He slammed the door in the boy’s face and returned to his seat. Ron and Hermione looked at him with surprise, shocked at the threat of violence.

He realized he meant the words, and it filled him with resolve. They weren’t just taunts, as they would have been in the past. He decided he was done enduring the Malfoys and Umbridges of the world. He was done being tortured for telling the truth.

If Fate wanted to invade his sanctuary, baring its snarling teeth, then he would snarl back. No more waiting on the inevitable disaster at the end of every year. That was Dumbledore’s way, not his. He couldn’t defeat Voldemort in a fair fight. That meant he needed to fight dirty. Shoulder checks and Wronski feints and beater bats to the face. Scores of dead Death Eaters, if that’s what it took. Fuck the rules.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Angelina watched the scenery roll by in silent contemplation. It would be her last time riding this train. Her peers were celebrating in other compartments. She had half-heartedly joined them for a while, smiling and laughing as they relived seven years’ worth of memories, both good and bad.

She was going home now, whatever that word meant. Its definition was still evolving, to be decided at some future date. It would involve quidditch somehow. Likely a war. Possibly a green-eyed, black-haired seeker who had somehow worked his way into her life and upended everything.

Whatever happened, she knew she would be staking her claim here, in the magical world. Because this was where she belonged, far more than the men in bone-white masks who sought to annihilate both her and the boy whose scent she could still smell on her robes.

She couldn’t be with him at the moment. Not when it would draw so much attention. He was right about that much, even if it didn’t make things easier to bear. 

After their final talk, they had made love with such tenderness that she almost cried right in the middle of it. Only he could do that to her. No more words had been spoken, just as it had been when they first overwhelmed each other in the quidditch showers. Even that had been intimate, she now realized.

She stared down at her bracelet, tracing her finger along the tiny eagle and stag. The figures almost glowed as the sunlight reflected off them through the window.

They had left things at ‘maybe.’ That was a word with many potential meanings. It wasn’t just a doubtful word. It was also hopeful. And that’s how she chose to view it.

Her immediate plans were still in flux. She hadn’t yet officially made a team, though she knew in her bones that she would. Maybe then her plans could become more concrete. Maybe she could find a way to meet with Harry this summer. To become more involved in whatever he and his allies were doing.

He had more secrets. Things he didn’t want to tell her about because it was dangerous to know. His protectiveness was endearing but maddening. But she could be patient. She was just as stubborn as he was.

Maybe they could meet in the fall too, if—

Hell, who was she kidding? Fuck maybe.

She would be in Hogsmeade on October 5th, November 8th, and December 11th, whether Harry liked it or not. She would be in the quidditch stands on November 2nd. She would sneak into the showers afterwards. She would use her signing bonus to buy an owl. She would wear her DA ring, just in case. And when he called on her, she would be there by his side and ready to fight. For everything.

She knew. And so did he.

_FIN_

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

A/N: Hope you enjoyed it. Like I said at the beginning, this started out as a smutty oneshot about Harry and Angelina hooking up in the locker room. It morphed into a real story, and the characters decided to fall in love without my permission. What are you gonna do? I indulged them.

I don’t want to write an epilogue (or the long story that would precede it). This story was about bringing them together, not how Voldemort dies. But I like to think their relationship could make all the difference, and that they could have a happy ending. Thanks for reading.


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